Secret Spending by the Weapons Industry Is Making Us Less Safe

Co-authored by Janiyah Williams

Two thousand, four hundred. That’s how many expensive and dysfunctional F-35 fighter planes American taxpayers are paying to have built, as part of a defense system that may never be fully ready for combat.

Two hundred billion dollars. That’s how much American taxpayers would save if Congress decided to end this program now. That’s $200 billion that could go toward things that make us safer — like public health measures to prevent the next global pandemic or deal with the epidemic of gun violence.

Unfortunately, many members of Congress – on both sides of the aisle – are beholden to the military-industrial complex. The Pentagon’s budget keeps climbing, year after year, and Americans are no safer. Why is that? And what can we do about it?

The three main drivers of excessive spending on the Department of Defense are strategic overreach, pork-barrel politics and corporate lobbying. A 2021 report from Open Secrets reveals that, over the last 20 years, the defense sector has dropped $285 million in political donations and $2.5 billion on lobbying to influence Congress and the federal government.

Read the full article in The Hill.