Red Flags of Waste in the FY 2017 Defense Budget

"FORBES”
 
“The defense budget process for 2016 (FY 2017) has just started, with the Administration’s $582.7 defense budget.

Here are red flags of waste:

 Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO). Defense spending is divided into a base amount, in the regular defense spending bill, and another account, OCO, intended for unpredictable wars and commitments abroad, in a supplemental spending bill in 2017. Last year, Congress threatened to put massive amounts of regular weapons purchases into the OCO, to get around spending ceilings (which do not apply to OCO).

Because of last year’s deal about budget ceilings between the President and the Congressional Republicans, it seemed like the OCO maneuver, for padding the defense spending bill, would stop. Wishful thinking. It won’t. The Administration has announced a proposed $59 billion OCO, most of which would actually devoted to overseas operations (although $8 billion is in regular weapons buys). The House majority intends to treat that figure as a floor, not a ceiling, and want to fatten up defense spending via OCO by at least $15 billion, making room for defense pork.

Wasteful individual weapons. The prize, in terms of massive criticism, goes to the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), meant for combat in shallow waters. A few months ago, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter wrote a blistering memo about how the Navy had to cut back its LCS purchases. Just recently, Senators John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Jack Reed (D-R.I.) said “practically no LCS mission capabilities [have been] proven.” But, the Administration budget would still buy two, and, Congress will want more.

The next overruns of the naval aircraft carrierm known as CVN 79. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) wrote about it, “Poor Outcomes Are the Predictable Consequences of the Prevalent Acquisition Culture.” The carrier is estimated at $11.5 billion, but, says GAO, “CVN 79 is likely to cost more than estimated.” Its predecessor has been plagued with cost overruns and other problems.

 More F-35s. GAO has written voluminously about the shortcomings of the F-35. But, this Lockheed plane is a favorite of the powerful delegation from Texas, where it is made. Per the budget, the Air Force reduced its buys by 5, but, the Navy and the Marine Corps will buy 13 more. Congress will spend for even more.

The Global Hawk. Some years ago, there was an effort to cancel this. As Taxpayers for Common Sense entitled their analysis, “Pricey Drone is a Waste of Money.” It was unreliable in bad weather and needed an expensive retrofit to counter anti-aircraft, and it seemed like there was not a need for both the U-2 and the Global Hawk since both do reconnaissance.. But, the budget includes both.

For some time, the Defense Department has been preparing to undertake a whole new nuclear Cold War. For the Cold War nuclear competition with the Soviet Union, the U.S. had a triad of nuclear armed submarines, bombers, and missiles. The department envisages a complete set of new weapons for all three legs of the triad (call them #6 for submarines, 7 for bombers, and 8 for missiles), plus the new nuclear warheads (9). Altogether, the “nuclear modernization” will cost about a trillion dollars.

Kingston Reif of the Arms Control Association wrote, “The United States is planning to rebuild all three legs of the nuclear triad and their associated warheads at a cost and on a schedule that many military leaders say is unsustainable.” But this budget includes $8 billion for submarines, with $40 billion planned, fully funds the nuclear bombers, and spends $9 billion on nuclear warheads.

Further: As for the proposed $1.4 billion for new nuclear submarine, with $10 billion over 5 years, it will benefit Senator Reed’[s state (R.I.) and Senator Blumenthal’s state (Conn.) – both on Armed Services — because of General Dynamics facilities.

Further: In the realm of strategic nuclear weapons, the Defense Department budget does propose to bring to an end one gigantic white elephant, a plant to convert the old plutonium warheads to reactor fuel (MOX). But, a strong story in the New York Times showed that the delegation from South Carolina (the plant location) will probably keep funding it.

Guantanamo Bay. Secretary Carter says he still wants to close Gitmo, which would save half a billion dollars. Needless to say, Congress will not agree.”

http://www.forbes.com/sites/charlestiefer/2016/02/10/ten-red-flags-of-waste-in-the-bloated-new-2016-defense-budget/#1b30378c12a9

In Honor of General H. Norman Schwarzkopf - Dead at Age 78

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Schwarzkopf,_Jr.

 

He fought a just and honorable war assisting many Middle East allies and other countries to free Kuwait. General Schwarzkopf is a true American hero. You will note he came home and stayed home. His successors then hung around with an imperialist attitude, resented by cultures that have hated that type of control for thousands of years.

These incursions have killed thousands of our finest youth and maimed the lives of countless others. We learned nothing from the Russians, our own experiences in Vietnam and similar outings in the past.

The average American will pay for this ruin in decades to come through taxes supporting hospital care, social services and veteran's homes.

VOTE TO "DE-CONSTIPATE GOVERNMENT"

VOTE:

The candidates who will make conscious decisions to participate in bipartisan plans to "De-Constipate" government as a first priority.

The laxatives are: Leadership, Listening, Compromise and Action - in that order.

CITIZEN PARTICIPATION AND TRUE STATESMANSHIP IN GOVERNMENT AND BUSINESS

FORMER SENATOR BILL BRADLEY

ABSOLUTE REQUIREMENTS IN OUR AGE

Tyranny sprouts within massive organizations through influences that embed themselves in economies and assume a life of their own. These organizations become entrenched and difficult to change because they are wired to so much of economic and public life (a defense company in every state, a pork project tacked onto a defense appropriation). We target our elected officials as figureheads for our frustration, when in fact the real culprit is a big, faceless machine grinding onward, never changing, because we (the citizenry and the politician) will not bite the bullet and dismantle it.

SENATOR BRADLEY

We applaud the recent commentary in the May 14^th, 2012 article in Time Magazine by former Senator Bill Bradley entitled “Citizens United”:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2113798,00.html

Here is an extract:

“To begin, citizens should insist on a presidential campaign about the future, not a blamefest about the past. Candidates' narratives can have a historical dimension about how we got where we are, but the bulk of their story must be about the future. If what you hear is only blame or bromides, change the channel. Haven't we had enough of those two things over the past 12 years?

Without leaders who level with the people about what needs to be done and how long it will take, there is no way to build support for the tough decisions necessary to solve our problems. People are tired of seeing moneyed interests dominate the House of Representatives — the people's house. They're tired of narrow interests raiding the U.S. Treasury in collusion with members of Congress who, when they leave office, are employed as lobbyists by the very industries whose interests they promoted in Congress. (The same applies in spades to congressional staff.) They're tired of seeing their Presidents appear at fundraisers and hedge their bets and compromise their beliefs to raise campaign money. People are tired of being taken for granted. They yearn for leaders who will level with them, not pander to them.”

As students of history we know much of what we are experiencing today in war and politics is tied to human nature.

As Mr. Bradley concludes:

“Now is the time for citizens to insist on answers to real questions and for the media to serve the public more diligently than they serve their advertisers. Now is the time for follow-up questions and enough airtime for candidates to lay out their programs. What, specifically, will they do about jobs, the deficit, political corruption? How do they see America's role in the world? Now is the time for politicians to show us that they are more interested in doing something than in being somebody. There is a great difference between a leader and a celebrity. The nation has had enough of politicians fascinated with celebrity. What we need are courageous leaders who serve the public and not themselves, who devise a plan to save the country and fight for it because they know that the well-being of millions of Americans is at stake.”

 OUR CONCLUSION

A new brand of politics and accountability must then emerge, one that will deal from within when organizations self-destruct catastrophically from greed and avarice. The big issue after such events will be: "What do we put in the place of such bureaucracies gone afoul ?" The US political system classically appoints a blue ribbon panel to study such problems spread the blame and write a detailed report no one reads. We must do better then that in the future. The impending trauma will not permit it.

Now is indeed the time for true statesmanship in government business.