Senate Beats Back Military-Industrial Complex In Historic Vote

President Obama won a major victory in the Senate Tuesday in a dogfight that has major, long-term implications for his agenda.

The Senate, by a vote of 58-40, approved an amendment proposed by Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) to strip $1.75 billion in funding for the F-22 fighter. Levin worked hand in hand to kill the F-22 money with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).

"There was an extensive effort by the White House," said Levin. "The president really needed to win this vote, not just in terms of the merits of the F-22 issue itself, but in terms of the reform agenda."

The vote had become a proxy fight against the power of the military-industrial complex, a term coined by President Dwight Eisenhower in his farewell address.

"It's What Eisenhower Warned us About," tweeted McCain before the vote. The F-22s have not been used in Iraq or Afghanistan and military experts agree they're not suited for American campaigns, yet lobbying and regional concerns have kept the program funded year after year. The victory over the military-industrial complex is arguably its most significant setback since World War II. For McCain, it was "probably the most impactful amendment that I have seen in this body on almost any issue."

"Up until the last couple hours, this vote was in doubt," McCain said. "And so I'd like to give credit to the president for being very firm on this issue and to the Secretary of Defense, who gave as strong a speech as I've ever heard in my life."

Obama had threatened to veto any bill that authorized the F-22 funding.

Forty-two Democrats and independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, of Vermont, joined 15 Republicans to defeat the F-22.

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Levin and McCain did a victory lap up to the third floor of the Senate after the vote, sitting down in the press gallery to celebrate.

As Eisenhower first defined it, the military-industrial complex is an alliance of military officers who demand ever greater funding, industry that wants the same and home-state senators and representatives who are more concerned about jobs at home than the ultimate value of the program.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates' defection from the alliance broke its back.

Yet 14 Democrats and independent Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, still voted with the military-industrial complex. A review of the roll call shows that regional interests played a larger part than ideology.

Democrats who voted to support the F-22 spending: Sens. Chris Dodd (Conn.), Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray (Wash.), Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), Jeff Bingaman and Tom Udall (N.M.) (Udall's Colorado cousin, Mark, voted to kill it), Daniel Akaka and Daniel Inouye (Hawaii), Max Baucus and Jon Tester (Mont.), Bob Byrd (W.V.), Mark Begich (Alaska) and Jeanne Shaheen (N.H.).

The same geographic pattern holds on the GOP side. Republicans who voted to kill the funding: Sens. Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker (Tenn.), John Barrasso and Mike Enzi (Wyo.), Jim DeMint and Lindsey Graham (S.C.), McCain and Jon Kyl (Ariz.), Tom Coburn (Okla.), who is the Senate's most outspoken foe of wasteful spending, but not joined by his GOP colleague Sen. Jim Inhofe.

Sen. John Ensign of Nevada joined Democratic Leader Harry Reid and Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio) joined Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) in opposing the F-22. Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) voted against the military industrial complex even while his Democratic colleague from the state, Shaheen, voted with it. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) joined the Democrat, Begich, in supporting spending for the planes. The same bipartisan dynamic was at work in Indiana with Republican Sen. Richard Lugar and Democrat Sen. Evan Bayh voting on the side of reform. Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) stood against the program; Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) was for it.

Obama's predilection for compromise and common ground couldn't come into play in the F-22 issue, because it wasn't a question of how much funding, but whether it should be funded at all.

"It would be hard to find any kind of middle ground on this issue," McCain noted afterward.

UPDATE: The White House renewed its veto threat Tuesday, in case the House was giving any thought to reinserting the funding in conference committee. "If that money is there, that bill will be vetoed," Robert Gibbs said in response to a question from The Advocate during the White House press briefing.

Ryan Grim is the author of This Is Your Country On Drugs: The Secret History of Getting High in America

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Comments

[cjk002]

You've failed me yet again, StarScream­...

[JGriffin]

Well, here's what the Cato Institute says about our military spending:

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=10152

Responses from conservative Republicans appreciated. Sincerely.

[sc300nc]

It's always the same. The Dems come in and the miltiary goes to crap. No support, no loyalty, no new equipment. But thank God the Republicans will be back in 2012 to rebuild it back to what it should be.

[lentinelia]

I'll look forward to 2012.
We're not quite bankrupted enough.

[cjk002]

Spending money on unnecessary technology is not loyalty. Even McCain and the Republican Secretary of Defense agrees.

If McCain had won, we'd still be cutting this program

[kate99]

why do we need thousands of these planes yes its a great weapon system but we are not in the cold war now we dont need that many right now

[higgins1990]

Since September 2008, here is what we've spent on the economic crisis:

$29 billion Bear Stearns
$97 billion BofA
$97 billion AIG
$112 billion Chrysler/GM
$139 billion GE
$235 billion Citigroup
$300 billion homeowners who can’t pay their mortagages
$400 billion (and counting) Fannie/Freddie
$700 billion TARP
$787 billion Stimulus

Our country is heading toward a $12 trillion debt, and stripping $1.7 billion for the F22 is a big win?

[lentinelia]

Thanks for the details.
Some win...

The dims and the repubs both work for the same employer.
And it ain't us.

We are the ones we have been waiting for --- and the phone ain't ringing.

[309blank]

all this crying for a third party is completely nonsensical. a third party is not viable in the electoral system used in the US and the "winner takes all" rule will never make a three party system in any way feasible. please read up on your political theory before you post populist blurbs without any viable content.

[friedfish2718]

"It's What Eisenhower Warned us About," tweeted McCain before the vote.
That is all good.

In the same speech, President Eisenhower warned not only about the military-industrial complex
but also about the scientific­-technolog­ical elite. Said elite is either on the Government payroll
or suckling at Government's teats.

excerpt:
"Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should,
we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself
become the captive of a scientific­-technolog­ical elite."

Government money corrupts scientific integrity; failure does not stop a governemnt project.
Industrial money reins in scientific fraud since failure means financial loss.

Eisenhower's warning is ignored on the matter of Cap and Trade/Tax.

[309blank]

cap and trade makes sense economically, ESPECIALLY if you are a free market advocate. it is the perfect symbiosis of caring for the environment and encouraging competition.

what cap and trade does is, it INTERNALIZES the societal costs of producing goods, which is energy consumption and pollution. the producers externalize as many effects of their productions as possible to keep their costs down. the problem is these costs don't disappear, they just have to be paid for by others. thus the market price of a good becomes distorted.

internalizing means, that producers need to take into consideration the implications of their production technology, and they make available technology that reduces pollution more desirable.

in fact: the externalizing of environmental harms distorts the free market more than an environmental tax or a cap and trade program ever will. because in nash equilibrium public goods are undersupplied because of the so called free rider phenomenon.

that means, that the individual thinks: well if all others are already contributing, it doesn't really matter if I contribute or not. problem is, everybody thinks that way. this is very inefficient and pareto improvements can be easily made by government intervention.

a pareto improvement is an improvement of the markets where everybody is better off than they were before.

i'm afraid if i make it any longer some republicans head might explode over the notion that government intervention can improve the outcome of the allocation of goods in inefficient markets .

[higgins1990]

I think there are maybe eight people in the entire country that think that cap-n-trade is a good bill. Dr. James Hansen, the godfather of global warming, said that the climate bill was "no more fit to rescue our climate than a V-2 rocket was to land a man on the moon."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-james-hansen/g-8-failure-reflects-us-f_b_228597.htm

[gregrocker1]

They moved the main contractor to an abandoned AF base in Gingrich´s old Georgia district, and it has since been the biggest economic driver in the most right wing, racist suburban district in the U.S. ,

[ColoradoDan]

How about that Black Budget .... hmmmm?

[vendetta]

The British Spitfire was the F-22 of its day. I'm sure some Chinese generals are smiling this morning...

[obamanomics]

Both the Chinese and the Russians.

[mouselion]

Oh yeah, all those dogfights we get into with Russia and China...

[cjk002]

You are so misinformed.

[anniebuddy]

Hey ... cut the defense budget just a tad more and we'll have plenty to pay for health care!

[lentinelia]

Stopping the spending of 500,000 dollars a minute in Iraq would help also.

[Vinca]

I think they allowed contracts to be given for planes or weapons that weren't needed , maybe just as paybacks. I believe I heard of one that was given for a plan that wasn't really effective. You've heard of the $600.00 toliet seat, which probably was a kickback. Money is wasted in just about everything. Lou Dobbs talked about Gov waste last night.

[lentinelia]

Wow!
A triumph!
One 600th of the defense budget is cut.
Yahoo!

[Norge]

It is just the tip of the iceberg. Almost not even mentionable. The stone age mentality of the MIC will bring down civilization in due time. Though they will then also cease to exist.

The earth will continue as it has for billions of years and just grind the fancy machines to dust and build mountains from them.

[lentinelia]

Your vision of the earth after we have left it in tatters is one of the more optimistic and poetic I've seen.
Usually, one reads of the earth being inherited by cockroaches and termites.

[CalebAbell]

That would be redundant. It's already being run by cockroaches and termites.

[Norge]

Lentinelia

Thank you for your kind comment.

Cockroaches and termites have been on earth quite a bit longer than humans and incidently have done far less ubuse to the soils, air and waters. And there are more than 6 billion of them. Thankfully the bacteria does help to clean a large part of our mess away also.

Norge

[Ladywolf55]

Love the comment. Oh, so true!

[Norge]

Ladywolf55

Thank you for your comment.

Rolf

[Mogamboguru]

The sprawling defense budget is the cancer that will .k.i.l.l America some not so distant day.

[JGriffin]

Each year, the United States spends about the same for "defense" as all other countries on planet Earth -- COMBINED.

A 15% cut in "defense" spending would entirely fund universal health care for all Americans.

Another 15% cut in "defense" spending would fund a college education for all eligible American high school graduates.

Imagine investing in ourselves, instead of funneling a trillion dollars a year to a corrupt military-i­ndustrial-­congressio­nal cabal!

When you hear someone claim we can't afford universal health care, ask them where they stand on defense spending.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States

[JGriffin]

Required reading on this topic in my opinion, from the conservative Cato Institute:

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=10152

[ObliqueReference]

To most conservatives these are good tax-payer funded expenditures:
500,000 troops stationed overseas in non war-zones.
9% of the federal budget going to farm subsidies
Junk mail subsidies.­.. and on and on
But other forms of "socialism" are unacceptable.
You can either deal with it, or not pay federal income taxes.

[who38]

No, we need to recognize and publicize white collar welfare and red neck welfare (otherwise known as "big farma"). I read today that Willie Nelson's annual Farm Concert--think it has a more perky name--has raised $35 million dollars since its inception in 1985. Wonder where the real money went.

[mountclemens]

Small potatoes. 1.75 billion dollars out of a revenue stream of 60 billion. (wikipedia).

This is not a big deal. It's probably a case of slight of hand.

Why don't YOU do the Googling this time. What other projects by Boeing are getting the go-ahead to out-balance this minor subtraction? Of course, if the new projects are in the black budget of the Defense budget, good luck to you.

[mountclemens]

oops. should be "sleight" of hand.

[smchp]

Baby steps.

[xlntcat]

It is a beginning. You have to start some where but how did the defense budget proposed by Gates grow by an additional 50 billion. I know for a fact that the corruption exposed last year with little comment by the press goes way beyond the air force. The troops do without necessary supplies while at home there is a blackmarket of goods paid for by the defense budget sold on-line.

[americanalien]

I congratulate the President and our Congress. The Military Industrial Complex was getting out of hand. In a recession like this, we need to save money wherever we can.

[ethancorso]

Was? They're not gone. This is a win for the good guys...but an extremely minor one in proportion to the big picture.