Corruption: use of public office for private gain - World Bank definition
From the Republic Report 'Corruption Watch':
Corruption Watch: Congressmen Awarding Big Defense Contracts to Companies in Which They Own Stock
Congressmen Michael McCaul and Kenny Marchant of Texas and Richard Hanna of New York all have two things in common. One, according to their personal financial disclosures, they own stock in defense contractor Pratt and Whitney. Two, they are all members of the F-35 Caucus, a group of Congressmen dedicated to awarding more contracts to defense contractors like, well, Pratt and Whitney.
The Secretary of Defense, the Pentagon, White House officials, and Senator John McCain (R-AZ) all agree: Spending hundreds of millions for new F-35 engines are a waste of taxpayer money. The planes have already cost taxpayers over $56 billion in research and development. Constant cost overruns have turned a plane that was supposed to cost $69 million each into one that now comes with a $156 million price tag. Some suggest that the entire F-35 program could spiral out of control and cost taxpayers more than $1 trillion over fifty years.
Defense contractors are pushing back against proposed cuts aggressively. In addition to increased lobbying spending and pro-F-35 advertisements in the Metro stops of Washington D.C., members of Congress agreed to form a “F-35 Caucus” to keep the taxpayer money flowing to the companies. As the Center for Responsive Politics noted, the F-35 Caucus members collectively received over $325,400 in contributions from the companies that make the F-35, including Pratt & Whitney, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and BAE Systems.
Republic Report has reviewed the personal finance disclosures of F-35 caucus, and found that a number of the lawmakers are also personally invested in the companies that produce the F-35:
– F-35 Caucus Member Congressman Michael McCaul (R-TX) owns between $350,000 and $750,000 in stock in the parent company of Pratt & Whitney.Congressman Norm Dicks (D-WA), whose campaign committee is a top recipient of F-35 contractor cash, is helping to lead the F-35 Caucus along with Congresswoman Kay Granger (R-TX).
– F-35 Caucus Member Congressman Kenny Marchant (R-TX) over $11,000 in stock with Northrop Grumman, over $5,000 in stock with Lockheed Martin, and over $5,000 in stock with the parent company of Pratt & Whitney.
– F-35 Caucus Member Congressman Richard Hanna (R-NY) owns up to $50,000 in stock with Lockheed Martin, and up to $15,000 in stock with the parent company of Pratt & Whitney.
In February, Congress refused to attach Senator Sherrod Brown’s (D-OH) strong reform amendment to the Stock Act that would have forced legislators to place their investments in a blind trust. So, this form of corruption goes on as perfectly legal. (emphasis added is mine - DG)
This post was written with valuable research help from intern Haley Streibich.
From the Roll Call CQ, preceding an article on ALEC:
Gates Foundation Will Withdraw Support for ALEC Nonprofit By Janie Lorber
Related from CQ TodaySenate Judiciary Leaders Call for Conference on Insider Trading Measures
Senators Seek Vote on Insider Amendments Dropped by House
Senators Look to Reconcile Insider-Trading Bills With House
After Expected House Passage, Future of Insider-Trading Bill Uncertain
House GOP Considers Rolling Back Some Provisions in Insider-Trading Bill
And then we have this from Canada.com:
Cabinet knew F-35's $25 billion cost, says AG
Lee Berthiaume, Postmedia News
Published: Thursday, April 05, 2012The government says it did nothing wrong as it was simply reporting the cost of buying the stealth fighters, not the price of operating them or associated salary costs, which would have been incurred no matter which plane replaced the CF-18s.
The Conservative government would have known that the F-35 was estimated to cost $25 billion when the Defence Department provided Parliament with a $14.7-billion figure in the weeks before the last federal election, Auditor General Michael Ferguson says.
Chris Wattie/Reuters
But while it has agreed to provide those full costs in the future, the revelation has thrown more fuel onto a raging fire that has already seen the opposition call for House Speaker Andrew Scheer to launch an investigation.
The issue goes back to March 2011, when Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page released a major report weeks before the last federal election that estimated the F-35 would cost taxpayers nearly $30 billion.
The Department of National Defence responded by telling Parliament - and Canadians - that the stealth fighter actually would cost even less than the $16 billion budgeted for the program, putting the figure at $14.7 billion.
But the military did not include a number of important costs in its response, and during the course of his own study, Ferguson found Defence actually had estimated as far back as June 2010 that the total cost would be at least $25 billion.
Most of the attention since Ferguson's report was released Tuesday has been on the bureaucrats responsible for the F-35 file.
But the auditor general told reporters Thursday that the Conservative government itself knew about the $10-billion discrepancy when National Defence put forward the $14.7-billion figure in March 2011 because the cost estimates were essential for long-term budget planning.
"I can't speak to sort of an exact date," Ferguson said. "(But) at the point in time, to respond to the Parliamentary Budget Office's office, it's my understanding that the government had that number."
The auditor general, who was appointed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper in November, told reporters he could not say exactly who would have known the military's true cost estimates.
But he was clear that by "government" he was referring to the executive - namely, cabinet and other members of the Conservative government, not the bureaucracy.
Related Links
- Den Tandt: A-G shreds Harper's fig leaf of deniability on F-35 debacle
- What was said about the F-35: Quotes from politicians, officials and critics about the Joint Strike Fighter program
- Coyne: F-35 debacle demonstrates a system of government in collapse
- AG report reveals key players in troubled F-35 program
- F-35 program proving a political pain for Tory government
- Den Tandt: Heads should roll for F-35 fiasco
- Canada's companies will remain involved in F-35 project: Harper
AG report reveals key players in troubled F-35 program
Lee Berthiaume, Postmedia News
Published: Wednesday, April 04, 2012OTTAWA - Auditor General Michael Ferguson's scathing report on the F-35 has put a rare spotlight on the coterie of senior officials - both civilian and military - who have been central to Canada's involvement in the troubled stealth fighter jet program over the years.
The list includes a former general now responsible for providing civilian oversight of military purchases, several former fighter pilots and a top official at the Public Works Department who previously managed communications at National Defence.
On Thursday, Ferguson will appear before a parliamentary committee to answer questions about his report, and Liberal MP Gerry Byrne will attempt to call the bureaucrats involved in F-35 procurement to testify at a future meeting.In the context that the Canadian Conservatives circumvented - as in cheated - the required parliamentary process on the F-35 intended to protect the citizens from corruption. The article from Canada.com above continues:
- Dan Ross, assistant deputy minister of materiel at the Department of National Defence - One of the most powerful bureaucrats in Ottawa, Ross is a retired general turned civilian charged with ensuring the military gets the equipment it needs - not necessarily what it wants - at an affordable price. He has held his current position since 2005, during which time the number of military purchases made without a competitive process has increased. Ross would have been involved in most if not all key briefings and meetings leading up to the government's decision to purchase the F-35.(emphasis added is mine - DG)Australia has joined Italy and the UK in delaying - possibly cancelling if the plane proves to be the turkey it is reported to be - their previous orders for the F-35. Continuing the bird metaphor, it looks like the cost over runs combined with poor performance, despite the profits made in investments by members of Congress in companies receiving these lucrative defense contracts, might finally have killed the goose that laid their golden eggs.
More 'related' stories from Canada.com:
Related Links
F-35 replacement candidates in the wings
U.S. auditor slams F-35 overruns
From Canada.com
F-35 replacement candidates in the wings
Michael Den Tandt, Times Colonist Published: Thursday, March 22, 2012
As the Tories batten the hatches ahead of an auditor general's report expected to be highly critical of the F-35 fighter jet procurement, indications are the government now intends to move into a holding pattern on the controversial project, awaiting further developments in the U.S. and internationally before making a final decision on a purchase, which could come between six months and a year from now.
Meantime, defence-industry players in Ottawa are quietly laying the table for what many now expect will be the eventual unwinding of the sole-sourced program, which has been plagued by delays, technical glitches and cost overruns, to be replaced by an international competition. The likeliest contenders, should there be a competition, are U.S.-based Boeing, maker of the F-18 Super Hornet, and Dassault of France, maker of the Rafale.
Both are twin-engined aircraft, which adds an element of safety in the Far North that the single-engine F-35 does not have. The Rafale, like the F-35, comes with radar-evading stealth technology, and, insiders say, could be built almost entirely in Canada. The Super Hornet has the advantage of being in wide use already around the world, and would be highly "interoperable" both with NATO air forces and with Canada's existing, aging fleet of CF-18 Hornet fighters.Reading history from the 20th century, as a Senator, Harry Truman discovered horrific but very similar problems with defense spending, where the decisions about purchasing and the awarding of contracts was corrupt, and where the nation was being ripped off.
From the United States Senate, 'Historical Minutes Essays':
1941-1963
March 1, 1941
The Truman Committee
The Truman Committee
 |
In 1940, as World War II tightened its grip on Europe, Congress prepared for eventual U.S. involvement by appropriating $10 billion in defense contracts. Early in 1941, stories of widespread contractor mismanagement reached Senator Truman. In typical fashion, he decided to go take a look. During his 10,000-mile tour of military bases, he discovered that contractors were being paid a fixed profit no matter how inefficient their operations proved to be. He also found that a handful of corporations headquartered in the East were receiving a disproportionately greater share of the contracts.
Convinced that waste and corruption were strangling the nation's efforts to mobilize itself for the war in Europe, Truman conceived the idea for a special Senate Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program. Senior military officials opposed the idea, recalling the Civil War-era problems that the congressional Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War created for President Lincoln. Robert E. Lee had once joked that he considered the joint committee's harassment of Union commanders to be worth at least two Confederate divisions. Truman had no intention of allowing that earlier committee to serve as his model.
Congressional leaders advised President Franklin Roosevelt that it would be better for such an inquiry to be in Truman's sympathetic hands than to let it fall to those who might use it as a way of attacking his administration. They also assured the president that the "Truman Committee" would not be able to cause much trouble with a budget of only $15,000 to investigate billions in defense spending.
By unanimous consent on March 1, 1941, the Senate created what proved to be one of the most productive investigating committees in its entire history.
During the three years of Truman's chairmanship, the committee held hundreds of hearings, traveled thousands of miles to conduct field inspections, and saved millions of dollars in cost overruns.
And then there was President Eisenhower, who also warned about the problems associated with the 'military industrial complex'. I can say that through the lens of history, "I Like Ike" (a motto during his presidential campaign). I REALLY like Ike, who was a great general, and a better president - a conservative, moderate Republican president back when that stood for something. The modern right, far more extreme, effectively worships Ronald Reagan, attributing qualities to him that he didn't have, and claims of aligning themselves with him in ways that are actually contrary to his positions. I would argue that Eisenhower - aka 'Ike' - was a better president, and a better conservative, if much less flashy and charismatic.
A few of Ike's notable quotes that seem applicable in this context:
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower
“Extremes to the right and to the left of any political dispute are always wrong.”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower
“Should any political party attempt to abolish social security unemployment insurance and eliminate labor laws and farm programs you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group of course that believes you can do these things. Among them are a few other Texas oil millionaires and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower
“The problem in defense is how far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without.”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower
“In most communities it is illegal to cry "fire" in a crowded assembly. Should it not be considered serious international misconduct to manufacture a general war scare in an effort to achieve local political aims? ”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower
“Preventive war was an invention of Hitler. I would not even listen to anyone seriously that came and talked about such a thing.”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower
Coming full circle to the excerpted quote at the beginning of this post is the entire quote from President Dwight David Eisenhower:
“This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower
Corruption, conservatives, and defense spending are all closely connected, not only in this country but in the governments of our allies. We need to oppose it, we need to root it out. We need to expose the corrupt connections between defense spending corruption and legislators - predominantly conservative legislators more than others at the moment - and between corrupt corporations and conservatives generally. The right is not the party of fiscal responsibility; they are corrupt, and they have and will continue to sell out the country, sell out American citizens, all of us, to corporate interests and big money. In the process they will trample our liberties as they have already shown they are willing to do in their culture wars, which are part backward bigotry and part an effort to retain power by a bunch of predominantly old white men.
Corrupt conservative old white men.
Corrupt conservative old white men making money off of public office for private gain, like the F-35 caucus and ALEC.
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