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President Donald Trump wants to spend $1.5 trillion on defense. Until 2017 there had never been an audit of our defense spending. Who knows where the money went, certainly not the Department of Defense.
In 2011, Congress notified the Defense Department that it had seven years to prepare to tell the nation how the billions of dollars appropriated had been spent. The audits failed to account for hundreds of billions of dollars. A reminder, a billion is $1,000 million.
Only a small fraction of the Pentagon budget is pay for our troops. Most of the budget is directed to major corporations that manufacture materials of war. As Trump cut taxes for rich folks and corporations, the burden of funding our defense increasingly falls on average Americans, people like you and me.
Today’s weapons are expensive. The Navy carrier Gerald Ford cost $13 billion, the B-2 stealth bombers cost over $2 billion each. They are so complex that each requires at least 50 hours of maintenance for each hour of flight time. Meanwhile the real workhorse of our Air Force remains the over 65-year-old B-52, which the Air Force has recommended be kept in service until 2050.
One other example of what the Defense Department is up to with our money: It was determined that our troops needed a new pistol. Rather than purchase existing models, they ordered a new design, one which has some 350 pages of specifications. Who knows how much each new gun will cost.
Ukraine has stalled the Russians using mainly inexpensive drones, some costing only several hundred dollars a copy.
Ron Jarvella
Belfast