How to close the deficit
Facebook
The Detroit News: Politics Blog
Libby Spencer
06/07/2010
Those who became suddenly outraged about the deficit since Obama was elected focus their ire on social programs mostly, with a nod towards "pork barrel" spending, as long as the projects aren't directly benefiting their districts. We constantly hear how Social Security and Medicare are "unsustainable" but few look to the other big moneypit -- Pentagon spending. According to the National Priorities Project the price tag for the Afghanistan and Iraq "wars" alone has now passed the $1 trillion mark. And for all the talk about how this was necessary to protect us, I don't notice that the threat of terrorism has lessened in the last ten years. Seems to be getting worse instead.
Furthermore, even if you buy the defense argument, it can't be denied that there is a whole lot of unneccessary spending that originates from that five cornered building. Take for instance, the cost of upgrading Gitmo since 9/11 happened. This is just part of the "improvements."
"The cost of the marquee, along with a smaller sign positioned near the airfield: $188,000. Among other odd legacies from war-on-terror spending since 2001 for the troops at Guantanamo Bay: an abandoned volleyball court for $249,000, an unused go-kart track for $296,000 and $3.5 million for 27 playgrounds that are often vacant."
In fact there are only 398 children living with their families at Gitmo and few are interested in using the playgrounds. If they're like most kids these days, one suspects they would rather be playing video games on their computers. The go-kart track was abandoned because they couldn't keep the few cars working properly. And the entire non-inmate population of Gitmo is only 5,500 people yet they spent at least $500 million on these improvements that nobody uses.
This is just for constructions costs and "does not include construction bonuses, which typically run into the millions." And I'd note in passing that KBR was a big beneficiary of these contracts. Neither does this include the annual operating costs of $150 million just for basic operations. If you add in the secret "black-budget items" the cost rises to about $2 billion. That's every year. In other words, closing down just this one embarassment to civilized society would fund a whole lot of programs that would benefit Americans, in America. And that's just one drop in a very big bucket of wasteful Pentagon spending.
