Congress constantly banks on votes of citizens by bribing people with promises, most of which they cannot fulfill. However national security becomes the hot topic where nothing can be cut, while millions of jobs based on the free market disappear.

As the economy continues to desend, the economy remains the top priority of many politicians to keep their job. The best way to guarantee a vote is to create jobs based on national security. Cities and States have now become dependent on military spending to create jobs in areas where there is a major decline in the economy. These jobs feed into the military industrial complex and hijack states in a no win situation to provide services or products that aren’t even needed.

This situation will not save the economies in states because more and more taxpayer money will be needed to fund pork projects, but it also neglects to address the issue that if these unnecessary jobs are not cut, something service members will need, will be cut. The DoD does have a budget (minus the intelligence black hole budgets) that it will have to adhere to.

Representatives have completely ignored the DoD’s request that it does not need certain products as it tries to trim its budget. However, congress has listened to the dire requests of voters that these jobs cannot disappear because it’s a national security issue. Simply put representatives try to keep districts, cities, and states afloat by funding jobs that have no demand. Jobs like those that produce the M1 Abrams tank. If it was such a national security issue, why would the DoD plead to not have one more tank?

Congress justifies this from the many military contractors spread throughout cities, towns, and states. The Yahoo, article describes one such contractor.

“General Dynamics estimated in 2011 that there were more than 560 subcontractors throughout the country involved in the Abrams program and that they employed as many as 18,000 people. More than 40 of the companies are in Pennsylvania, according to Sen. Robert Casey, D-Pa., also a staunch backer of continued tank production….Portman, who served as President George W. Bush’s budget director before being elected to the Senate, said allowing the line to wither and close would create a financial mess.”

Both the left an the right cannot cut a thing. Congress still lives under the delusion that the government creates jobs.

“People can’t sit around for three years on unemployment insurance and wait for the government to come back,” Portman said. “That supply chain is going to be much more costly and much more inefficient to create if you mothball the plant.”

However, as the demand for tanks nears 0, there is becomes little need to make tanks for national defense. In fact, in this article, it states that the market has opened to selling our defense weapons internationally to keep the jobs open. “Still, far fewer tanks are coming out of the Lima plant than in years past. The drop-off has affected companies such as Verhoff Machine and Welding in Continental, Ohio, which makes seats and other parts for the Abrams. Ed Verhoff, the company’s president, said his sales have dropped from $20 million to $7 million over the past two years. He’s also had to lay off about 25 skilled employees and he expects to be issuing more pink slips in the future.”

As the Constitution states the “Congress shall have the Power to lay and collect taxes…to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States….To raise and support Armies… and to provide and maintain a Navy”

Congress is now the military industrial complex welfare dealer than a body adhering to the Constitution. Is this new policy supporting unnecessary jobs or supporting the army? Congress has renounced its responsibility to providing for the army and navy as the current battlefield has changed. We no longer fight in wars against other countries with tanks, but has shifted into a war that is irregular. As Federalist 31 states:

“As the duties of superintending the national defense and of securing the public peace against foreign or domestic violence involve a provision for casualties and dangers to which no possible limits can be assigned, the power of making that provision ought to know no other bounds than the exigencies of the nation and the resources of the community.

As revenue is the essential engine by which the means of answering the national exigencies must be procured, the power of procuring that article in its full extent must necessarily be comprehended in that of providing for those exigencies.

If we don’t need anymore tanks, what current exigencies are we providing for? Congress has tried to create a symbiotic relationship between military and industry. Yet, it has confused who to provide for from revenues raised. Unintended consequences have come in many shapes in these wars. One of those, was congress has created a parasite instead by ignoring the constitution. In the end, the economy will lose, the jobs will be lost, and the states will have extinguished all it energy into securing a pork project instead of opening up a path to the free market in their state instead.

Kelli Sladick

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