Reps. Kay Granger (R-Tex.) and Norm Dicks (D-Wash.) announced the formation of a Congressional Joint Strike Fighter Caucus with 49 members from both parties. Its purpose: to protect funding for the F-35 stealth fighter. The plane, as the most expensive weapons program in history, is one of the biggest potential targets in the defense budget.
The members of the caucus are also some of the top recipients of political money from the company that designs and builds the fighter, Lockheed Martin. The company’s political action committee and its employees have given the caucus members $1.3 million in political contributions over their careers, according to a Washington Post analysis of data from the Center for Responsive Politics.
We are told over and over again that there is no money to help Americans. Bankers got bailed out, but everyone else is told 'tough luck'. There's no money for jobs. There's no money to stop foreclosures. There's no money to extend unemployment benefits. There's no money for anything like a New Deal for Americans. In fact, not only are we told that there's no money to provide any help at all to struggling Americans, but we are told that we are the ones who have to pick up the bill from the deficit caused by the bank bailouts, the wars and the runaway defense budget.
In the midst of this situation, this group of 49 congresspeople stands up and basically gives the finger to the American people. They declare that a hunk of metal in the shape of a warplane, a warplane that has absolutely no role in what we are told is the great threat to Americans, ie, the Terror Wars, is more important that the jobs, homes and survival of Americans.
Want to know why America is in so much trouble these days? Here's 49 reasons why.
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