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As they considered the massive emergency Iraq supplemental spending bill this week, Senators cut some of the worst earmarks and bloated spending. But they ignored billions of weapons pork lining the coffers of big defense companies.
Some of their cuts were responsible. The budget scalpel excised an earmark by Sens. Richard Durbin (D-IL) and Kit Bond (R-MO) that reversed the administration’s efforts to kill the $1.8 billion extension for the FutureGen clean-coal power project in Illinois. The earmark would have continued a cooperative agreement between the Energy Department and a consortium of private investors to build the plant, even though the consortium includes a Chinese company that would “ultimately be able to use the technology developed with taxpayer dollars to build plants in China,” according to Roll Call.
However, billions of dollars for new weapons were approved by the Senate, despite these programs being controversial, unwanted by the Pentagon, or having little or no relation to the Iraq war. Last year, the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee basically admitted that they were going to use the emergency spending bill to stuff in additional items that didn’t fit in the defense spending bill. And they did.
Here are the top three we found in the current supplemental:
C-17: The legislation appropriates $3.6 billion for 15 new C-17’s that the Pentagon really doesn’t want and which have little to do with military operations in Iraq. This funding has more to do with keeping Boeing’s Long Beach production line open into the summer of 2010, than Iraq. It is also a gift to Boeing and gives them time to find more international buyers for the aircraft.
C-130J: The emergency spending bill provides $1.8 billion for 18 new C-130J transport planes that, until recently, the Pentagon wanted to eliminate. While we are aware that one C-130J has been lost in Iraq, the Air Force argues they need many more because increased stress on the aircraft’s airframes has caused them to age faster than expected. Sounds like they are just shopping to fill their weapons wish list.
CV-22: The bill provides more than $500 million for the CV-22 Osprey. The money has been added despite limited use of the aircraft in Iraq. In reality, the money will help fund the recent DoD plan to purchase 141 CV-22 aircraft for the U.S. Marine Corps, and 26 for U.S. Air Force units operating with Special Operations Command. The plan involves buying up to 33 CV-22s per year from 2008 to 2013.
For several years, the Pentagon has used the emergency spending bills as a slush fund to pad the overall Defense budget for weapons programs that don’t need to be replaced or are unrelated to the war. The Senate bill continues that trend.
Cutting funding for weapons not necessary to fight the war in Iraq seems like a great place to start in an effort to get us closer to the President's initial request. And the $6 billion for the three new weapons programs mentioned should be the first to go.
Taxpayers for Common Sense
