We’ve heard this song and dance a dozen times…and I’ve written about high paying jobs here in Wisconsin at Oshkosh Trucks (IED resistant trucks) and Marinette Marine (littoral Navy ships)…and how those jobs go away as fast as they appear when the military needs evaporate…well here we go again…except it’s in Ohio, the home of the Abrams battle tank.
Apparently Congress wants to continue nearly a half billion dollars in funding to acquire new Abrams tanks that the Army simply DOESN’T WANT and DOESN’T NEED!
Built to dominate the enemy in combat, the Army’s hulking Abrams tank is proving equally hard to beat in a budget battle.
Lawmakers from both parties have devoted nearly half a billion dollars in taxpayer money over the past two years to build improved versions of the 70-ton Abrams.
But senior Army officials have said repeatedly, “No thanks.”
It’s the inverse of the federal budget world these days, in which automatic spending cuts are leaving sought-after pet programs struggling or unpaid altogether. Republicans and Democrats for years have fought so bitterly that lawmaking in Washington ground to a near-halt.
Yet in the case of the Abrams tank, there’s a bipartisan push to spend an extra $436 million on a weapon the experts explicitly say is not needed.
“If we had our choice, we would use that money in a different way,” Gen. Ray Odierno, the Army’s chief of staff, told The Associated Press this past week.
But since the jobs are in politically important Ohio, no body seems to want to believe that the Army isn’t interested…and of course we can never spend enough money in the name of national defense.
If there’s a home of the Abrams, it’s politically important Ohio. The nation’s only tank plant is in Lima. So it’s no coincidence that the champions for more tanks are Rep. Jim Jordan and Sen. Rob Portman, two of Capitol’s Hill most prominent deficit hawks, as well as Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown. They said their support is rooted in protecting national security, not in pork-barrel politics.
The Abrams dilemma underscores the challenge that Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel faces as he seeks to purge programs that the military considers unnecessary or too expensive in order to ensure there’s enough money for essential operations, training and equipment.
But maybe just this once, the government actually is responsible for creating jobs?
The Lima plant is a study in how federal dollars affect local communities, which in turn hold tight to the federal dollars. The facility is owned by the federal government but operated by the land systems division of General Dynamics, a major defense contractor that spent close to $11 million last year on lobbying, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.
The plant is Lima’s fifth-largest employer with close to 700 employees, down from about 1,100 just a few years ago, according to Mayor David Berger. But the facility is still crucial to the local economy. “All of those jobs and their spending activity in the community and the company’s spending probably have about a $100 million impact annually,” Berger said.
Jordan, a House conservative leader who has pushed for deep reductions in federal spending, supported the automatic cuts known as the sequester that require $42 billion to be shaved from the Pentagon’s budget by the end of September. The military also has to absorb a $487 billion reduction in defense spending over the next 10 years, as required by the Budget Control Act passed in 2011.
Still, said Jordan, it would be a big mistake to stop producing tanks.
“Look, (the plant) is in the 4th Congressional District and my job is to represent the 4th Congressional District, so I understand that,” he said. “But the fact remains, if it was not in the best interests of the national defense for the United States of America, then you would not see me supporting it like we do.”
So if a single product line, albeit a tank, is so critical to the economic vitality of a region of the United States, what the heck might happen to the nation as a whole and the economy in general if maybe we cut loose and attacked all of the infrastructure jobs that need doing? Maybe the feds could create a LOT OF JOBS?
The end result would likely be permanent jobs “attacking” infrastructure jobs that we don’t want and don’t need! You saw what happened with the tank, why don’t you think that would happen in other areas where the government spends money? Lots of people building bridges to nowhere all over the place (oh wait, you criticized that just a few years ago didn’t you?) We become dependent on those jobs and that money, whether it is needed or not.
Now this is not to say that I am against infrastructure spending. I think that’s actually one of the only roles of government. Ironically it has abandoned that responsibility and replaced it with income transfer and dependency programs.