The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have come at a great cost to the American people. Thousands of men and women have died in uniform in the war zones, and billions of dollars have been spent on the wars. The wars have caused the deaths of thousands of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, and they have arguably had a destabilizing effect on the Middle East. It seems that the only ones benefitting from the wars have been defense contractors. Over the last decade the United States has outsourced much of the wars. Defense contractors have built bases, shipped supplies, cooked food, cleaned uniforms, and provided security. Many of the functions that used to be performed by the military have been outsourced to corporations such as Halliburton. However, we don't always get what we paid for.

What do Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, Raytheon, and Northrop Grumman have in common? Each of these corporations is one of the top five largest defense contractors in the nation. In 2011 alone, the Department of Defense committed to spending nearly $100 billion with just these five companies. To put that in perspective, that is about the same amount spent on the entire federal education budget for 2011.

Pentagon spending has been a focal point for both President Obama and Governor Romney during the 2012 presidential debates. While Obama’s goal is to slow the defense budget’s growth over the next couple of years, he emphasizes that it will still grow. Romney’s plan however, proposes increasing Pentagon spending to meet 4% of U.S. gross domestic product. 

As the New York Times reported earlier this week, leading members of the U.S. Senate are scrambling to devise a plan that averts automatic sequestration budget cuts scheduled to go into effect on Jan. 2, 2013. What remains to be seen is how any kind of deal will address a massive, wasteful $700 billion-a-year Pentagon budget and not place the bulk of deficit-reduction solutions on slashing vital programs like Social Security and Medicare.

It's moments like this that underscore the near, if not complete, evaporation between the interests of the war industry and the public entity that's supposed to have oversight over it, the U.S. Congress. Read this post from Colorlines' Seth Freed Wessler and try to describe where the drone lobby and industry end and where the House of Represenatives Unmanned Systems (or Drone) Caucus begins: 

Republican U.S. Sens. John McCain, Kelly Ayotte and Lindsey Graham are back on the road today in Nevada to do the bidding of Pentagon contractors. 

This resource page was produced by the Project on Government Oversight and allies. Please share in an effort to combat spin coming from the Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex about potential cuts to the Pentagon's budget.

In their campaign to stop reductions in Pentagon spending and protect their profits, big defense contractors are spending millions on studies, rallies, and lobbying Congress with the false claim that defense cuts will result in the loss of more than one million American jobs. But Pentagon contractors’ threats to send layoff notices to thousands of employees in the days preceding the Presidential election are political stunts. The public has a right to know the truth behind the rhetoric and fear mongering.

War Costs has pointed out before the moaning, groaning and outright deception coming from defense industry titans like Lockheed Martin -- and their defenders on Capitol Hill -- over planned defense cuts, supposedly a menace their companies cannot survive if you believe their rhetoric. They attempt to paint themselves as victims of sequestration put in motion by the Budget Control Act of 2011, voted for by the likes of Sen. John McCain, who hit the road last week with other senators to scare swing states about possible job losses as a consequence of the planned cuts he helped put into motion.

As Robert Greenwald and I pointed out in our latest post, the defense industry and their protectors are turning out en masse this week to oppose defense cuts planned to take effect Jan. 2, 2013. One of those protectors -- actually, THE protector on Capitol Hill -- is House Armed Services Committee Chairman Howard "Buck" McKeon (R-Calif.). McKeon called on industry leaders to testify today in front of the committee to warn of the job losses and other stresses the industry faces if the cuts happen.