Topeka Capital-Journal

By Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan (usn, Ret.) MinutemanMedia.org Published Friday, May 04, 2007

Congress doesn't have a great record when it comes to taking on the military industrial complex. In fact, truth be told, our lawmakers have failed us, again and again, while defense contractors and their allies win funding for tens of billions in weapons we simply don't need. Not in Iraq. Not anywhere.

Finally, some members of Congress are fighting back. Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA) has introduced a remarkable bill that would transfer $60 billion in wasted Pentagon funding to stuff that really matters, like healthcare, schools, and job training.

Well, it turns out that the Afghan and Iraq wars are funded separately by Congress-not by the normal Pentagon budget. That's why President Bush frequently asks the House and Senate to pass "supplemental" funding. This money pays for the war effort.

So that leaves the proposed $504 billion Pentagon budget to pay for all our nation's defense activities, outside of Iraq and Afghanistan.

For decades, defense analysts from both political parties have agreed that the Pentagon wastes tens of billions of dollars. Some, like the libertarian CATO Institute, have put the figure for defense waste at over $100 billion.

But Woolsey chose to trim $60 billion, a conservative estimate of Pentagon waste. Most of this money would come from cutting obsolete Cold War weapons systems, like the F-22 fighter jet, designed to counter a Soviet plane that was never built.

For $60 billion, our great nation could make dreams come true at home and abroad — without diminishing our ability to fight terrorists or to give our men and women in the military the best weapons they need.

For $60 billion wasted on the Pentagon, we could:

• Provide health insurance for all uninsured kids at home.

• Feed six million kids who die of starvation abroad.

• Re-train a quarter million workers who've lost their jobs here.

• Re-build America's crumbling public schools over 10 years.

• Augment our county's Homeland Security Budget.

• Boost research into renewable energy to rid us of our dependence on foreign oil in ten years.

• Boost funding for veterans' health and medical research.

Under Woolsey's bill, we could do all that, and still have $5 billion left over to begin reducing our nation's debt.

And, please sit down: We could do this every year. The savings would be annual. A bill like Woolsey's hasn't been introduced in Congress in my memory, and I've been following military issues in Congress for decades.

Our country should be proud that Woolsey — and the House members who co-sponsored the bill — had the nerve to stand up and say, essentially, "America can no longer afford to pretend that the Pentagon is not a fiscal mess-because we are scared to be accused of being weak on defense."

It's so rare for our political leaders to call for cutting Pentagon waste that Woolsey's bill has turned heads in the Washington establishment. They know Woolsey makes sense, especially now with the budget crunch in full force.

But don't hold your breath waiting for many more of our political leaders to endorse spontaneously the "Common Sense Budget Act." Most still see too many risks in challenging defense spending, and they fear for jobs in their districts and retribution by defense contractors.

That's why it's up to everyday Americans to be heard on this issue.

We need to call on our leaders to endorse the Common Sense Budget Act and force Washington to hear us-not defense contractor lobbyists-when it comes to wasteful Pentagon spending.

Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan (USN, ret) formerly commanded the U.S. Second Fleet and heads the Military Advisory Committee of Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities. www.sensiblepriorities.org