Campaign contributions from the defense industry = corruption
Speaking Security Newsletter | Congressional Candidate Advisory Note 2 | 27 April 2020
Public funds for personal gain
That’s how Democratic leadership defined corruption throughout the impeachment inquiry. According to the House Armed Services Committee chairman, “the President leveraged congressionally authorized taxpayer dollars for his own personal interest.”
But that’s what members of Congress are doing when they accept campaign contributions from the defense industry. At root, these donations are mostly taxpayer dollars. An example:
Reported ‘sales’ by defense contractor Northrop Grumman* in 2018: $30 billion
Percentage of ‘sales’ from DOD contracts (US taxpayers): 80
Campaign contributions (2018 cycle): $4.2 million
*Northrop Grumman’s CEO, Wesley Bush, took home $24.2 million in FY2018.
Here’s a ‘zoomed-out’ view of this form of legalized bribery/corruption:
DOD budget authorized by Congress (FY2018): $670.6 billion
Of that, amount distributed to private sector via DOD contracts: $372.5 billion
Total political donations from the defense industry (2018 cycle): $30.4 million
Conclusion
Since all of you support some version of Medicare For All (unless I added you to this list by mistake), this phenomenon probably looks familiar, as it should: it resembles in a lot of ways the interplay between pharmaceutical giants and Congress.
That’s all for now.
In solidarity,
Stephen (stephen@securityreform.org; @stephensemler)