Another Free Radical Idea

The mantra in Washington is spend, spend, spend to prevent further contraction of the economy and the much feared possibility of another depression.  Politicians are so frantic that any kind of crazed spending program is getting a second look.  The biggest squanderer of taxpayer money inside the beltway is now being touted in the Wall Street Journal as a job creator: the Pentagon.  A Harvard economist has suggested giving the five sided black hole another $30 billion to spend on weapons programs for the purpose of generating 300,000 new jobs.   There are a least a couple of problems with that idea.  First, modern weapon programs have incredibly high overheads and very long lead times.   Any jobs created by additional Pentagon spending would not be immediate ones.  Even if the USAF were allowed to buy 60 more F-22s for $11 billion, production work could not start until 2010 given procurement regulations and lead times for supplying specialized materials. A big chunk of $11 billion would go for contract overhead without creating a single new production job.   Extending the completed production run of F-22s would probably only save existing highly skilled jobs, not create needed entry level ones.  Secondly, more appropriations would end up enriching defense firms that already have contracts to produce new weapons like the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.   Lockheed Martin is testing that aircraft, and is running into the usual development problems. Throwing more money into producing systems that are not even proven is simply wasteful, not a job program.  Thirdly, the same amount of money spent in the civilian sector would create more jobs, faster.  Spending $1 billion on public transit would generate 19,795 jobs compared to 8,555 at DoD.  Spending $1 billion in education would generate 17,687 jobs[1].  So here is the radical idea: cut wasteful defense spending to the bone. Eliminate or curtail all Pentagon weapon system programs not needed to fight the low tech war in Afghanistan.  The money saved could then be spent on recreating the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Works Project Administration, two of FDR's most successful programs intended to re-inflate a depressed economy.  The time has come to end the permanent war economy that has brought us to these dire straits.  And you heard it here first.

[1] Winslow Wheeler, www.counterpunch.org