We Don't Need No Stinkin' Tanks

In a world where "wasteful" is an almost mandatory prefix to the phrase "Pentagon spending", another revelation of gross financial irresponsibility from the military budget would hardly make the news these days.

But this one's not your everyday $600 screwdriver.


The latest outrage from the Pentagon's pork-stuffed checkbooks is the backbone of our land based armed forces, the M1 Abrams tank.

This 62-ton chick magnet is admittedly a bit of a gas-guzzler - it actually takes 10 gallons just to start up - but has served with distinction for over 30 years, in such diverse conflicts as Iraq (1991-1991) and Iraq (2003-)

Of course, you know the young generals these days, all they want to talk about is drones, drones, drones... So why are taxpayers spending another half-billion dollars on the Abrams?

These aren't new tanks, exactly, they're just $7.5 million upgrades to older models which will give them faster electronics, color flatscreens, and free WiFi.  Apparently no upgrades to the weapons or armor are thought necessary, since the threats we're facing lately don't generally have tanks, or even, y'know, shoes sometimes.  Without a doubt, this is fiscally shrewd.

But the truly shocking news is that the $436 million program is COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY - and we only know this thanks to the courage of a plucky young whistleblower who's come forward to sound the alarm about this travesty.

Speaking truth to power, the embodiment of heroism in public service,  this obscure Washington staffer is so fearless he's even letting us use his real name and job title: Army Chief of Staff General Ray Odierno.

Yes, the Pentagon neither wants nor needs this program, but Congress is paying for it anyway.

After rounding out its fleet of some 2,400 shiny Abrams tanks currently on the showroom floor, the Pentagon had plans to call a halt to future purchases - at least until 2017, when the design process on a new model is completed.

Fortunately for General Dynamics, the company whose GLDS facility in Ohio builds these snazzy rides, they'd prudently invested $11 million in lobbying against the risk of just this kind of outbreak of common sense.  Fiscally shrewd.

As the honorable Congressman from Ohio (state motto: "We Make Tanks Here") Jim Jordan puts it in a deftly argued logical syllogism, "The one area where we are supposed to spend taxpayer money is in defense of the country".

Other potential areas for spending could not be reached for comment.

His position is that if we keep buying tanks now, even just to provide shade for vast tracts of the Nevada desert where they're parked, then the companies which make them will still be around in a few years - in case we want to buy more tanks!  Fiscally shrewd.

Do these companies really depend on American taxpayer dollars?  As it happens, our buddies in Saudi Arabia and Egypt routinely buy more than twice as many of these tanks every month as the U.S. Army does, not to mention periodic sales to Australia, Kuwait, and (somewhat ironically) Iraq.

But Representative Jordan and his good neighbor, Ohio Senator Rob Portman, refuse to be lulled into a sense of false security about the future of their constituents' jobs.  Certainly not by robust overseas sales which dwarf their proposed spending levels.

Even amidst the current austerity climate caused by the sequester - which they both support - they are going to drive this spending program right up the Pentagon's ass if necessary.

And 173 members of the House of Representatives - from both parties - signed a letter of support for all this shrewdness last year, in a rare show of bipartisanship.

It seems one thing which is not doomed is our purveyors of doom.