• downpunxx@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Bernie Sanders, lol, wouldn’t have the first clue as to what the Pentagon needs and what it doesn’t

    • Leigh@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      This is a particularly low effort comment, provides no value, and is therefore unwelcome here. It’s also demonstrably nonsense, as others have shown you.

      Please consider engaging intelligently, and in good faith.

    • SpaceMonk@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      L take, this guy has been on more committees than most (if not all) of the current Senators. He understands well. If you have ever written him a letter and asked him direct questions you would know. Dude is a literal power house that nobody has heard of because he does his job unlike many other “popular” ones.

      • HumbleHobo@beehaw.org
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        1 year ago

        I don’t know about where you are, but Bernie support in my group of friends and otherwise is still pretty strong and I live on the other side of the country. I don’t know if “nobody has heard of” him, but I know that people in power frequently try to subvert and de-fang him because he doesn’t accept the status quo and seems to be open to changing the system.

    • Chariotwheel@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      You’re disagreeing with that then:

      much of this additional military spending will go to line the pockets of hugely profitable defense contractors – it is corporate welfare by a different name. Almost half of the Pentagon budget goes to private contractors, some of whom are exploiting their monopoly positions and the trust granted them by the United States to line their pockets. Repeated investigations by the DOD inspector general, the GAO and CBS News have uncovered numerous instances of contractors massively overcharging DOD, helping boost these companies’ profits to nearly 40% – and sometimes as high as 4,451% – while costing US taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. TransDigm, Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Raytheon are among the offenders, dramatically overcharging the taxpayer while reaping enormous profits, seeing their stock prices soar and handing out massive executive compensation packages. Last year, Lockheed Martin received $46bn in unclassified federal contracts, returned $11bn to shareholders through dividends and stock buybacks, and paid its CEO $25m a year. TransDigm, the company behind the 4,451% markup, touted $3.1bn in profits on $5.4bn of net sales, almost boasting to investors about just how fully it was fleecing the taxpayer. The fact that a share of the profits from these lucrative contracts will flow back to the congressional backers of higher defense budgets in the form of campaign contributions – America’s unique system of legalized bribery – makes the whole situation even more unconscionable.