Weapons Makers as ‘Welfare Queens’

The public never hears about war spending in the corporate media and how much everything actually costs. The United States has been spending billions on military machines, weapons, vehicles, and planes. Even though the estimated cost today per plane is $113 million, the Marines, the Air Force, and the Navy are planning on buying a combined 2,450 of them which would cost $323 billion. A single future weapons system is now estimated to cost the American taxpayer almost one-third of what the Obama administration’s health-care plan is expected to cost over a decade. Few politicians mutter a word about the F-35. It’s never in the headline news, even though the money is being taken from not-so-deep taxpayer pockets. Tom Engelhardt points out, “here’s an American reality: the Pentagon is our true welfare state, the weapons makers our real “welfare queens,” and we never stop shoveling money their way.”