Defense spending often wasteful, immoral

Perhaps you have noticed that when the pope or our national conference of bishops speaks about peace or nuclear disarmament or foreign policy, the average Catholic balks. The usual feeling in our church pews is that these religious leaders do not understand how vitally important it is for America to keep its defense up even if we are the only remaining superpower, even if we command an exceptionalism whereby only we may keep troops in 176 countries, even if we justify all our defense spending with its millions of jobs. Besides, we really think that religious leaders should be listened to only when they are speaking about religious subjects.

Who of us wants to be unpatriotic? Who wants to deprive our troops of all they need to accomplish their missions? Actually many generals and admirals, including those of the Center for Defense Information — cdi.org — the people most in the know, say we could have a robust defense at two-thirds of the present cost, which comes in at about an annual trillion dollars if you include non-Defense outlays as the 40 billion of the Energy Dept. to house our nuclear arsenal, or the tens of billions for the care of veterans, or the immense interest we pay on our defense-weighted debt. Anyone want to charge our brass with wimpiness?

First, the enormous waste in defense outlays starts in unnecessary weapons systems that the brass doesn’t want, saying their only purpose is to benefit defense contractors who bankroll the reelection of congresspersons. With sub- contractors located in nearly every congressional district, no politico will nix another’s pork if he wants his own pork left alone. The generals know the agenda in Congress but still decline to approve weapons that would have been useful in the last war, the war that politicians are always fighting. No one here wants to refuse troops in the field.

Second, our State Department is responsible for enacting our foreign policy worldwide. By what right does it assume the U.S. should be the world policeman, keeping order among warring tribes and securing the ability of American companies abroad to obtain resources and goods at huge discount? Who decides that our all-volunteer military, staffed by valiant men and women, must risk their lives for corporate gain at home? Remember the oil, rubber and tin of Vietnam? And why does no one object that such foreign policy usurps the job of the United Nations, whose responsibility we have admitted by signed treaties it is to keep world order?

Third, jobs are central to the health of our national economy. The Bush & Obama bailout poured billions into rehabbing banks and manufacturing corporations. But these huge mastodons, too big to fail, learned how to make do with fewer employees. Now that they are sitting on that cash, invested overseas, they refuse to use the money to create jobs. What a coincidence that Congress failed to stipulate that they could have the money only when they provided jobs and loans.

So it’s understandable if the average American confessed that all these faults exist, but we still must steer government money into defense projects to provide the jobs we all admit we need for recovery. But years ago labor specialists found that, dollar for dollar, defense spending was the least productive kind of public spending. It pumps very little back into the civilian economy, where we live. Taking the same million dollars, it would employ a few highly trained technicians in the defense industry, but several times that if we hired teachers or construction workers or nurses. When a battle tank comes off the end of an automated assembly line, it sits in the weather at some armory, gathering rust. When a teacher or nurse or pipe fitter banks a paycheck, it goes back out in thousands of directions.

Let’s go back to the part about average Catholics pooh-poohing the criticisms of our religious leaders when they object to our overly Defense-heavy budget, or when they call for full nuclear disarmament, or when they score the war tilt of all government decisions. All these are huge moral issues. That means they have to do with human life, as much as do abortion or execution or fetal stem-cell research. We have no quarrel with their leadership on some life issues. Why do we on others?