Forum Post: Another reason to hate the 2012 NDAA: less political transparency in Defense spending

http://www.gardnerpath.com/2011/12/1350

There are many reasons to not like the recently passed FY2012 Defense Authorization Act. First off, the total spending for military will be about $670 billion under this bill. That’s two-thirds of a trillion dollars in one year — but continuing a middle class tax cut at a fraction of that cost is like pulling teeth! It also increases the military’s ability to detain people without trial. That’s bad.

But how about this part that never gets mentioned:

SEC. 845. PROHIBITION ON COLLECTION OF POLITICAL INFORMATION.

(prohibits the defense department from requiring contractors to disclose their political spending in contract solicitations)

This section is meant to override an executive order signed earlier this year that would “require companies to disclose all Federal campaign contributions as a condition for submitting a bid on a Federal contract.” The Section was added in an Amendment by Rep. Cole, supported by our own Cory Gardner.

President Eisenhower tried to alert us to the dangers of the Military-Industrial Complex, which has by now grown grossly out of control. In 2010, contract spending made up more than 55% of DOD’s $664 billion budget. And that was a low contract-spending year.

We can guess that of this new FY2012 NDAA’s $670 billion authorization, at least $350 billion will go directly to contractors. That’s a lot of money and knowing more about the political influence of companies that receive those dollars is vital to our democracy.

The Top 10 defense contractors, in 2009-2010, spent $177 million lobbying and more than $15 million on political contributions. Successful lobbying and putting money into the right campaign coffers can be a wise investment for these companies, whose contracting totals were in the hundreds of billions in that same period.

The executive order from earlier this year would require disclosure of all political spending, including lobbying, campaign contributions, and contributions to third-party PACs. The order sought to expose the cycle of corruption, where contractors receive billions then use those funds to buy political influence and more contracts.

Apparently exposing corruption is bad business for the GOP, which overwhelmingly supported Rep. Cole’s amendment (235 GOP yes to 1 no). I imagine a lot of defense contractors lobbied against this amendment and paid a lot of contributions to do so.