Military Spending

Dear friends,
I get the newsletter for the FCNL, which is the Quakers'-- the Friends'--- newsletter. They ask the very good question about whether the military budget actually DOES support our troops. They mention that since 2001 the military budget has doubled. The number of active duty troops has grown by 40%. Less than 25 percent of the dollars are committed to the support of military personnel, and many are outside the war zones. In contrast, the spending on weapons procurement, R&D, and military construction has more than doubled. Buying new weapons has increased 10-fold since 2004.
The biggest military contracts are Lockheed-Martin, Boeing, BAE Systems, Northrup Grumman, and General Dynamics. Lockheed reported more than 42 billion in revenue in 2007, about 91% is from Pentagon budget. It also reported 21.4% return on investment to its shareholders. The government typically offers a "cost-plus" agreeement to the contractors-- no matter how much the costs of the manufacture rise, a certain profit margin is guaranteed.
To put this in perspective, if the same federal dollars were spent in nonmilitary fields such as health care, education and mass transit, the Friends analysts estimate that 50-130% more jobs would be created than those supported now by these contracts. They say it would be even greater if the money were spent on "green solutions" to climate change. Also, the money is NOT being spent for the troops who put themselves in harm's way, or their families.
We need to press the Congress to address these problems more effectively.
Sincerely, martina