Bernie's Hypocrisy on Defense Spending

I confess I was very pleased to see Hillary Clinton's thorough defeat in the New Hampshire primaries this week.* But it's always important to clarify that heartfelt opposition to one candidate does not necessarily entail genuine support for their opponent. Elsewhere, we have suggested that Bernie Sanders may be the least of all the plausible evils remaining in the race for the Presidency. While that may be true, we should not forget all the things that Bernie is terrible on. One of those things is the topic of today's recommendation.

We're speaking of course about Bernie's oddly close relationship with the defense industry.

Bernie regularly condemns corporate handouts from the government and presents himself as the relatively antiwar candidate left in the race. It is therefore surprising that Bernie has consistently supported defense spending on projects of the Lockheed Martin Corporation, which is the largest defense contractor in the world and receives more US government money than any other company. This includes support of the enormously expensive and useless F-35 fighter plane. Essentially, the F-35 is a wealth redistribution program from US taxpayers to the shareholders and employees of Lockheed Martin.

But this is okay with Bernie because he's managed to ensure a lot of those Lockheed employees are in his home state. I'm not speculating here; that's literally his stated justification. Wasteful defense spending isn't going away any time soon, so it might as well be in his district. If that doesn't sound like a regular politician to you, nothing will.

I'll let the article pick up the story from there and fill in the details. Note that it's coming from a left-leaning publication so it's not just a random hit piece. Rather, it's conveying an unfortunate fact about a candidate that many people desperately want to believe in. I still happen to think a Sanders foreign policy would kill the fewest people (or do so with the least zeal, in any case). But it's always important to remember how low the bar is. The least bad option among terrible alternatives is still a bad option. On foreign policy, Bernie Sanders is that option.

And on that light note, here's the link:

Bernie Sanders Loves This $1 Trillion War Machine

*It's not that I'm a sexist though I assure you; I just have an irreconcilable dislike for politicians that have successfully steered the US into aggressive wars. I suspect my opposition to a Dick Cheney presidential run would be similar in character though stronger in intensity. If you like that parallel, you should check out this piece that I borrowed it from.

New Budget Proposal Keeps Military Spending As High As Ever

President Obama recently set forth his final budget proposal, and it offers a strong rebuke to the usual rhetoric that America's military is in decline. On the contrary, the proposed budget for the military is going to be held effectively constant at $583B for FY 2017, which compares with $584B in 2016.

Predictably, one of the defenses offered for this massive amount is the competition from Russia and China. But this justification does not stand up to any scrutiny. According to recent calculations by the National Priorities Project, the US spends as much on its military as the next seven countries combined (and yes, those seven include Russia and China). Yet in spite of this obvious fact, some Congressional Republicans responded to the proposal by demanding even more money for the military.

This offers yet more evidence that the military is immune to any budgetary pressures, and is one reason why it might be a good idea to bet on stupid, as we've proposed previously. (Coincidentally, Lockheed Martin's stock has been up this week, likely due in part to this news.)

For more on this story, we'll refer to you to the short summary offered by Jason Ditz at Antiwar.com. You can also check out this longer write-up at the New York Times if for some reason you're looking for something without sarcasm.