Where inequality is produced in the DOD budget

Speaking Security Newsletter | Congressional Candidate Advisory Note 9 | 14 May 2020

Situation

In 2018, 24 cents per $1 in taxpayer funds went to defense. Of that, 5 cents went to things relevant to the people in the military. More than twice that amount (12 cents) went to defense contractors.

This plays out in a way you might expect. Enlisted soldiers in 2018 earned about $20,000. Conversely, Here are the top 5 federal contractors from that year (all defense contractors) with CEO compensation for each.

1. Lockheed Martin / $21.5 million

2. Boeing / $23.4 million

3. Raytheon / $17.1 million

4. General Dynamics / $20.7 million

5. Northrop Grumman / $24.2 million

Yikes. And, with the exception of Boeing (which has commercial outputs), the rest of the CEO pay here is largely subsidized by the US public (for example, 80 percent of Northrop’s revenue in 2018 came from DOD contracts).

Judging by the votes for the 2018 NDAA, your primary/general opponent was likely complicit in fueling this wealth inequality machine (votes: Senate, House).

Where the inequality happens

Here’s your typical DOD budget breakdown (the small slice refers to military construction — DOD struggles with visual aids). This one’s from 2018, but they all pretty much look the same as far as the distribution between accounts goes.

Nomenclature and a very crude summary on what each account funds:

- RDT&E (Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation): Weapons research

- MILCON (Military Construction): Family housing for US personnel, military bases, and Trump’s border wall

- Procurement: Buying weapons

- O&M (Operations and Maintenance): US military operations (also known as the ‘Readiness Budget’)

- Military Personnel: Salaries, benefits for US military personnel

People > Weapons

Since all of you are interested in reducing inequality, you’ll want to stay away from the portion in dark blue: the non-war economy/non-subsidized economy is still subject to austerity politics, so it’s best to keep US military personnel on government payroll to minimize the overall suffering of the working class.

But the rest is fair game — O&M can be reduced by winding down US military empire, and the remaining accounts — particularly Procurement — largely enriches the one percent.

Hope this helps!

In solidarity,

Stephen (stephen@securityreform.org; @stephensemler)