The Militarization of America At What Cost?

1. The Militarization of AmericaAt What Cost? Prepared by Peace Action Montgomery www.PeaceActionMC.org

2. Topics • How Much do We Spend on the Military? • Where Does the Money Go? • What Does American Militarism Cost You? • To Reverse Militarism, Can We Safely Cut the Military Budget? • Fund Our Communities: Bring the War Dollars Home

3. How Much Do We Spend on the Military?

4. Total Federal Budget, FY 2010 Both Discretionary & Mandatory • Mandatory: Required by law Examples: • Interest on Debt (9.5%) • Social Security (21%) • Medicare • Unemployment • Discretionary: Negotiated each year Examples: • Military • Education • Research Source: National Priorities Project

5. Obama Budget Proposal FY 2011 • “All other” includes: • Environment • Science • Transportation • International affairs • Everything else except entitlements and debt. Source: National Priorities Project, FY 2011

6. Growth in Military SpendingExcluding Wars Source: Project on Defense Alternatives

7. Military Spending Over Time

8. Discretionary SpendingBy Category, 2009 Billions of Dollars Source: Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation, Briefing Book

9. 2010Budget: Military Recruitment vs. Peace Corps Dollars Sources: American Forces Press Service; Peace Corps Web Site

10. U.S. Military Spending vs. Other Countries, In Rank Order, FY 2009 Source: Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation

11. Montgomery County Citizens’ Share of Pentagon Expenditures, FY2010 Budget • About $3 billion or • $2,000 per person Source: National Priorities Project

12. With $3 Billion, Montgomery County Could Instead Have Paid For: • All expenses at a public university for four years for every 18-year-old in the County, and • Renewable electricity for three years for all the homes in the county, and • Over 5,000 new affordable housing units. Source: Computed from National Priorities Project and census

13. State of Maryland What MD residents paid in FY 2010 towards the Pentagon budget: $13.7 bn Entire State FY 2010 budget: $13.9 bn Shortfall: 2.6 bn State spending cuts: Public Health Disabled Education Source: National Priorities Project, Out of Balance

14. Where Does the Money Go? • War costs • Foreign military bases • War profiteers

15. Military Budget, 2011 Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation

16. Total War CostsIraq and Afghanistan Through 2010 Total direct cost of both wars by 2010: over $1 trillion Iraq: $747 billion Af/Pak: $332 billion Total: $1.079 trillion Source: National Priorities Project

17. $1 Trillion is a Thousand Billion Imagine that you spent $1 million/day beginning with the birth of Jesus—to spend a trillion dollars, you’d need to keep spending $1 million/day until mid-way through the 28th century. If you laid out $1 trillion end-to-end in $100 bills, you could circle the Earth at the equator 39 times. A trillion dollars could pay the salaries for a year of 18 million people at $55,000 per job.

18. Afghanistan War Costs • Total U.S. defense spending in Afghanistan, FY 2010: $101 billion. • $1 million: cost to send one soldier to Afghanistan for one year • $400 per gallon: US military’s cost of gasoline in Afghanistan Source: Congressional Research Service Report RL 33110

19. Afghanistan War vs. World Military Spending In 2010, the United States will spend more on the war in Afghanistan than any other country in the world spends in total on the military. Source: Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation; Reuters

20. It’s a Choice! Are lengthy occupations of Iraq & Afghanistan how we want to spend our money? We have other threats!

21. Where Does the Money Go? • War costs • Foreign military bases • War profiteers

22. U.S. Foreign Military Bases • The US maintains about 1,000 foreign military bases • Foreign bases cost taxpayers about $250 billion per year Source: Foreign Policy in Focus, Anita Dancs

24. Floating Bases • The U.S. has 11 nuclear powered aircraft supercarriers—the entire rest of the world has 11 carriers, and these are all much smaller than those of the U.S. • The U.S. maintains over 100 deployed ships and submarines at any given time—with 30,000 sailors afloat. Source: United States Navy; Project on Defense Alternatives

25. Military Bases as the New Imperialism 95% of all the military bases on another country’s soil are U.S. bases. “Once upon a time, you could trace the spread of imperialism by counting up colonies. America's version of the colony is the military base.” Chalmers Johnson, 2004 Source: Chalmers Johnson

26. The Movement to End Foreign Bases International Network for the Abolition of Foreign Military Bases: www.no-bases.org Source: International Network for the Abolition of Foreign Military Bases

27. Foreign Bases: A Provocation The Declaration of Independence criticizes the British "for quartering large bodies of armed troops among us" and "for protecting them . . . from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these States.“ Foreign bases create enemies and make us less safe.

28. Where Does the Money Go? • War costs • Foreign military bases • War profiteers

29. War ProfiteersExample: Lockheed Martin • 84% Percent of L/M profits derived directly from US tax payers, 2008 • $4.4 billion Amount of tax-payer money distributed as profit, 2008 • $42.68 million Total compensation of Lockheed Martin CEO, 2009 Sources: Forbes; LM Company Statements;

30. Lockheed Martin • Paid $577.2 million in fines because of contract fraud since 1995 • Found guilty of 50 instances of various kinds of misconduct (including contractor kickbacks, nuclear safety violations, fraud, etc.) Source: Project on Government Oversight

31. Lockheed Martin: Forms of Influence • Political donations, 2008 cycle: $2,801,455 (from L/M PACs and individuals, per FEC) • Paid lobbying, 2008: $15,981,506 Source: Open Secrets

32. Lockheed Martin: Forms of Influence Geographic distribution of subcontractors “The ideal weapons system is built in 435 Congressional districts and it doesn’t matter whether it works or not.” Alain C. Enthoven, economist and former Pentagon official In 2009, Lockheed Martin placed full-page ads in the Washington Post showing the number of jobs for F-22 construction, by Congressional district, throughout the nation.

33. Lockheed Martin: Forms of Influence—The Revolving Door • Lockheed's former vice-president, Bruce Jackson, worked in the DOD, and then organized and chaired the “non-profit” Committee for the Liberation of Iraq (2002-03): It lobbied hard for the Iraq war—a war that dramatically increased Lockheed Martin profits • 8 other senior Bush Administration members had similar ties to Lockheed Martin Source: Hartung & Ciarrocca

34. The War Profiteer Circle

35. What Do Military Contractors Do? • Feed troops • Maintain facilities and equipment • Transport cargo • Wash clothes • Provide security guards for bases and diplomats • Engage in military actions Contractors are doing everything that used to be done solely by the military—for a profit.

36. Contractors vs. Troops in Afghanistan Source: Congressional Research Service

37. Who Are Mercenaries? Soldiers-for-hire or “private security contractors.” They are recruited from all over the world.

38. Outsourcing the Military • Powerful companies promote war because it is profitable, not because of the interests of the nation • The profit motive, in war, can be counter to the military’s goals and the nation’s • Oversight of contractors is negligible and contractors often do poor jobs—costing lives and more money • Cost-plus contracts , the most common DOD-type contract, encourage waste and unnecessary spending

40. What Does the Militarization of America Cost You? • Economic Costs • Environmental Costs • Cost to Democracy

41. A Weaker Economy Increased spending on the military relative to other parts of the economy leads to : • Fewer jobs • Higher interest rates • Greater inflation Source: Center for Economic and Policy Research

42. U.S. Job Creation with $1 Billion Spending Number of Jobs Created Education Health Care Clean Energy Consumption Military Source: U of MA, Political Economy Research Institute

43. A Weaker Economy Money to finance wars displaces productive investment, for example to rebuild infrastructure at home. As a result of not making these investments, future output in the U.S. will be smaller. • Source: Stiglitz and Bilmes, The Three Trillion Dollar War

44. Economic Costs: Debt Service Interest costs alone are so high that they will soon dwarf federal spending on other priorities Source: Congressional Joint Economic Committee Majority Staff, Nov. 2007

45. Personal CostsProjected Costs of Wars: $3.5 Trillion by 2017Almost $50,000 per Family Source: Congressional Joint Economic Committee Majority Staff, Nov. 2007

46. Total Estimated Costs of Iraq & Afghanistan: $3.5 Trillion With $3.5 trillion, for the next 133 years, we could send every 18-year-old in the U.S. to a state university. We could pay all their education expenses--tuition, fees, and room and board--for four years.

47. What Does the Militarization of America Cost You? • Economic Costs • Environmental Costs • Cost to Democracy

48. Environmental Costs • The U.S. military is the biggest polluter in the world, generating an estimated 750,000 tons of toxic waste every year. • The military burns an estimated 20 million gallons of gasoline daily—about the same as the entire country of Iran. • The military writes its SOFAs to exempt the U.S. from responsibility for cleaning up environmental damage. Sources: Graydon Carter; Barry Sanders

49. What Does the Militarization of America Cost You? • Economic Costs • Environmental Costs • Cost to Democracy

50. Threat to Democracy • Militarism restricts freedom at home • Recent arrests of peace activists in Chicago and Minneapolis • “Protest zones” established