Congress used defense as excuse for pork binge (WP)

[Nambe]

The Washington Post

We're in the middle of simultaneous wars against terrorism and insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the outcomes are anything but certain. To help fight these wars, Congress passed a gigantic $416 billion appropriations bill for the Defense Department in July; President Bush signed it into law on Aug. 5. The measure, the president declared, ensures that "our armed forces have every tool they need to meet and defeat the threats of our time." ..

By the time Congress had finished with the bill in July, House and Senate members had added more than 2,000 of these "earmarks." Some items had at least a tenuous relevance to defense, but many didn't. None, though, had been included in the defense budget put together by the Defense Department and the Office of Management and Budget, and there was subsequently little, if any, objective evaluation of their cost and efficacy.

Nonetheless, Congress was content; there's a record-setting $8.9 billion in pork to impress the voters back home, and no one is the wiser about what is really being done to "raise and support armies" and "provide and maintain a navy" -- or not.

[Bertha Venation]

1. This started in 1941 and god knows how or when it will end.

FDR set a dangerous precedent when he spurred the country to massive armament before our entry into WWII. We needed the measures they put into place then, desperately. But no one ever thought -- no one ever effectively acted, at least -- to turn off the spigot.

True Majority has some infuriating facts on defense spending as compared to education and health care spending.

[Massacure]

2. Yes, the Manhattan Project

Did the government ever classify documents before the Manhattan Project?

[Bertha Venation]

3. I don't know. Probably.

FDR started not only research into the bomb (or, okayed the work once the idea reached his ears), but the gear up to armament for WWII created the military-industrial complex.

Now it's a leviathan that no one wants to try to rein in. It's outrageous -- but no one cares.