The big Pentagon contractors have been trying to scare lawmakers, the
public, and the troops with dramatic claims that there will be massive
job losses. For nearly a year, these contractors and their lobbyists
have likened potential cuts in the Pentagon budget to the sky falling.
Their threats to send layoff notices—right in time for the November
elections—have been admonished from many corners—and are among the more
desperate political stunts of recent memory. But just to be sure they’ve
got the attention of all candidates, they’ve cooked up hyperbolic job
loss numbers based on convenient, if completely faulty assumptions—these
are available by state or congressional district, don’t you know.
Some are taking the bait. Certain members of Congress have been
parroting these scaremongering talking points during town halls and
other events this month during the congressional recess. In their very
scary “sequestration roadshow” they are talking about jobs, but fail to
mention some essential information about how exactly these contractors
have been living large on the largess of taxpayer dollars.
What you won’t hear in these the Pentagon’s base budget will still be
larger than it was in 2006, fact-free events is that even under the
deepest proposed cuts—the unlikely budget sequestration—according to the
Congressional Budget Office—and all military personnel would be exempt.
Lest we forget, in 2006 we were at the height of the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan. The Pentagon was spending more than at any time during the
Vietnam War and nearly as much as it spent during the height of the Cold
War.
POGO’s Ben Freeman took a closer look at the jobs picture, and found
that back in 2006, the nation’s top defense contractors employed
thousands more than they do now. That’s right, together the top five
defense contractors have been cutting jobs while getting more and more
taxpayer dollars. In 2011, the top 5 Pentagon contractors received 10
percent more from taxpayers than they did in 2006, but employed fewer
people.
Take the behemoth Pentagon contractor Lockheed Martin, which threatened
to send layoff notices to its employees because of sequestration, but
has led the way in cutting jobs while its government contracts soared.
Lockheed Martin received $10 billion more taxpayer dollars in 2011 than
it did in 2006. Yet, Lockheed Martin employed 17,000 fewer people in
2011 than it did in 2006.
So why haven’t the big Pentagon contractors employed more Americans as
they have taken in more taxpayer dollars and made record profits? It
looks like more money does not mean more jobs. There is other analysis
that shows defense contractors shouldn’t be our go-to job creators.
If Pentagon contractors really will need to tighten their belts, they
should start at the top. Contractor executive pay is out of sight, on
par with Wall Street execs. Again, we did some digging and found that
the average compensation package of a CEO at the top five defense
contracting firms was about $21.5 million last year. The typical CEO of
an S&P 500 company received less than half of that last year—$9.6
million in total compensation.
Contrast that with the $45, 230 that the average worker in the U.S.
earned last year. That means CEOs at top Pentagon contracting companies
were paid more in a single day than the average American worker was paid
all of last year. In fact, the Pentagon could pay the salary of 335
soldiers with the money from just one contractor CEO or perhaps save 268
defense and aerospace industry jobs. Fat chance, said the fat cat.
Of course, all of this noise about jobs is generated through millions of
dollars funneled to campaigns and lobbying to protect the record
profits of these big Pentagon contractors—supplied primarily by taxpayer
dollars.
Shouldn’t we instead be talking about how to make America safer and
stronger? National security begins with economic security, and we aren’t
going to get there by continuing to throw taxpayer dollars at outdated
defense strategies and profit-hoarding by the Pentagon contractor lobby.
Most Americans and organizations with diverse ideologies and agendas
agree that to get there we must rein in the runaway spending at the
Pentagon.
Few think sequestration is the right policy, but it’s time to end the
hype and scare tactics. It’s time for members of Congress to stop
catering to the Pentagon profiteers and instead work for sensible
solutions for more economic and national security.
(For notes and references, please visit the original site of this article at
http://goo.gl/PZQjs.)
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Angela Canterbury, Director of Public Policy
Project On Government Oversight (POGO)
