Defense Industry Courts GOP Freshmen to Quiet Calls for Spending Cuts

Arms Makers Vow to 'Educate' Lawmakers on Importance of Deficit Spending

The major influx of Tea Party Congressmen came primarily on the basis of promises to reduce the budget deficit, and with the tacit understanding that the already record military budget cannot possibly continue to grow unchecked.

The prospect of not pouring endless money into endless wars is terrifying to many, notably major arms makers, and it is perhaps unsurprisingly that they are scrambling to court those Congressmen and ensure that they are “educated,” to quote one company official, on the importance of runaway deficit spending.

Boeing’s Jim Albaugh insisted it was vital to “educate” the new lawmakers about exactly how much of the American economy, such as it is, is centering around the construction of big expensive tax-payer funded things that blow up other big expensive tax-payer funded things.

But while most of the long-standing officials seem keen on the idea of an economy that operates almost entirely around the construction of elaborate weapons systems that don’t work to defend against attacks that will never come, it seems the freshmen are at least asking the question of whether or not this is a sustainable system. That the question scares so many should provide a pretty clear hint of the answer.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.