How Weapons Contractors Drive the U.S. military Budget

The Pentagon budget alone is more than every other federal agency in the government combined. Just one company, Lockheed Martin, gets 75 billion dollars a year in Pentagon contracts, which is more than one and a half times the State Department and the Agency for International Development (USAID) combined.

If you care about education, if you care about environmental protection, if you care about jobs, if you care about housing. All those things are being squeezed.

This huge Pentagon budget is not being driven by careful consideration of what we need to protect us. It’s being driven by Lockheed Martin and the top five contractors, who put facilities in most states, many congressional districts, give tens of millions of dollars in campaign contributions. employ 700 lobbyists — more than one for every member of Congress. It’s this kind of pork barrel politics and corporate influence that’s the real driver of the budget.