Congress whittles many beaks

by ilsm

If the war machine were not for the jobs and the PAC’s it may be more useful than whittled beaks.

New England politicians saved jobs, diverted funds from better uses, many outside the military industrial complex. The Navy will build a third Zumwalt class destroyer. The Navy does not need a destroyer which is too small for the radars needed for fleet air and missile defense and which cannot fulfill the anti submarine roles either. The Navy, to their credit, had wanted to use the money to build a larger more versatile existing class of ship which could do the missions.

Boston Globe, August 20, 2008: Lawmakers’ Influence Felt In Destroyer Decision Critics call reversal a make-work program.
By Bryan Bender, Globe Staff

“We saw it with the B-1 bomber, we saw that with the Seawolf submarine,” said Winslow Wheeler, a former Republican congressional aide who has become a vocal critic of the defense budget process. “This shows the depths to which Congress has sunk. It has become bipartisan to see the defense budget as a jobs programs. They see it as key to their own political survival. So the nation is to pay for overpriced, ineffective weapons because it helps a politician stay in office.”
“According to Loren Thompson, a defense analyst at the Lexington Institute, an Arlington, Va., think tank, the project would be headed toward extinction if not for powerful New England politicians.”

So many beaks are whittled for the congress?