Can Weasels Drive Tanks or Just Fund Unnecessary Ones

M1A1 Abrams Tank

Great warfighting vehicle -- unsurpassed in modern warfare ... but not necessarily in places like Afghanistan or Iraq and similiar areas. Plus, the Army says they don't want or need any more. But, leave it to Congress to "create" jobs and keep the military industrial complex running on our tax dollars, full bore as it were. This story caught my attention and I hope it caught yours, too, from the AP here.

Introduction and key points I detected (this is not the first time, either as seen in this from May 2010):

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," General Ray Odierno, Army Chief of Staff, told The Associated Press. 

So, why are the tank dollars (and your tax dollars) still flowing? (Short, simple answer): Politics.

Noted from that CNN report (link above) is this: The Pentagon while trying to rein in some big-ticket contracts keeps telling Congress to stop spending money on the C-17 transport planes (seen here) are not needed, plus stop spending on a $485 million alternate engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) (related article here). The JSF engine program — already delayed and over budget — could end up costing taxpayers billions of dollars (according to former DOD Secy. Robert Gates in the article). However, with jobs at stake in Congressional districts, they profess, Congress continues to ignore those requests for years and continued to appropriate funds for the C-17 and a second F-35 engine.

Just mention jobs and Congress goes all postal on the public to get what they want not what DOD says it needs or does not need. Strange, mostly only when it impacts DOD jobs. They say they always work hard for jobs, bus ironically, they seldom produce anything except more slick campaign rhetoric designed to scare the voters about "Obama and the DEMS (always the DEMS) are weak on defense," etc. etc. yap, yap. And, we all know the public is one huge sucker when it comes to thinking (falsely in most cases) that we need more spending on defense.

Oddly enough, we spend more than the next 12 countries combined (we spent 41% of the entire world's military money in 2011) and most of those other countries

Thought you'd like to know.