gracchusdixit

On January 17, 1961, Dwight David Eisenhower delivered a farewell address to the nation after eight years in the White House. Before becoming President, Eisenhower had been the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe, overseeing the invasion of Normandy and, ultimately, the defeat of Nazi Germany.  He was, if not universally loved, almost universally respected, and he chose the occasion of his last address to the nation to deliver a warning regarding what he famously called the “military-industrial complex.”  It is worth quoting his words at some length:

A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment.  Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction.  This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience.  The total influence—economic, political, even spiritual—is felt in every city, every statehouse, every office of the federal government.  We recognize the imperative need of this development.  Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications.  Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.  In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.  The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist.  We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes.  We should take nothing for granted.  Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peace methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together. 

“Ike” was the most conventional of men.  He was an undistinguished graduate of the military academy at West Point, where he played football but failed to make the baseball team, a setback which he subsequently described as “maybe the greatest disappointment of my life.”  Until he ran for President, he had spent the entirety of his professional life in the military and had every reason to speak well of that institution.  Yet, just weeks before John Fitzgerald Kennedy, a Democrat, was to take his place, he decided to warn the nation against the very institutions that had defined his professional and political life.

That was an act of great political courage, and, sixty years later, it is easy to forget how truly courageous it was.  We were in the middle of the Cold War.  There was daily talk of a nuclear Armageddon.  The Soviet Union and communism were looked upon as demonic forces from which only the United States military could save us.  It was therefore stunning that a Republican President of the United States, not to mention a former five-star general, should question what was then the most revered of our public institutions.

That reverence continues.  One public opinion poll after another indicates that Americans have little faith in any public institution except the military.   The Congress, the judiciary, the White House, the media—all are held in contempt.  The military is admired to the point of unquestioning worship.

It now appears that our reverence for the military may be misplaced.  I am not speaking of the countless men and women in uniform who serve our country, often at the risk and sometimes at the forfeit of their lives.  They deserve every possible honor.  Rather, I am speaking of the institution that employs them—the Department of Defense.

Several weeks ago, the Inspector General of the Department of Defense issued a report after completing the first-ever audit of its books.  To say that the report was “damning” would be a grotesque understatement.  It appears that the Defense Department has been engaged in massive accounting fraud, trying to balance its books (or rather, to create the illusion of balance) by making trillion-dollar “adjustments” that cannot be substantiated with invoices or receipts.  In one calendar quarter alone, the phony adjustments amounted to $2.8 trillion; the total fudging for the year amounted to $6.5 trillion.  That’s trillion—not billion.

Sums this large so boggle the mind that a bit of context is required.  The annual cost of Social Security is $880 billion; the cost of Medicare is $550 billion; the cost of financing the entire national debt of the United States of America is $200 billion.  Those are billions—not trillions.

We hear complaints all the time from various political candidates—particularly from Republicans and most particularly from Donald Trump—that our military is underfunded.  We hear claims from people like Paul Ryan, the Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, that social and domestic “entitlement” programs are bloated and inefficient and must be slashed to reduce the federal deficit.

The truth of the matter is that military spending constitutes the largest part of the federal budget and is far and away the major cause of deficit spending—and that doesn’t even include the vast amount (much of it classified, secret, and unaccounted for) that we squander on our sprawling intelligence agencies.  This whirlpool of waste consumes so much money that it has distorted not only government but our social priorities.  In the name of security and strength, we starve our schools, watch our bridges and roads crumble, and contemplate the destruction of the social and economic bargain the nation made in the wake of the Great Depression.

So, the next time somebody tells you that we can’t afford a higher minimum wage, a free university education, or a public health care option, tell them to read the Inspector General’s report.  There’s enough wasted money in the military-industrial money pit to accomplish all those things—and more.