Bernie Sanders Applies "ACORN Standard" to Defense Contractors

[babylonsister]

Bernie Sanders Applies "ACORN Standard" to Defense Contractors
posted by John Nichols on 10/04/2009 @ 12:25pm

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Now that the Congress has established the ACORN precedent, it can be used to go after the multinational corporations that have mastered the game of Grand Theft Treasury.

Members of the House and Senate have given themselves permission to grab the cuff-linked wrists of the penthouse pimps and prostitutes and pull their manicured fingers out of our wallets of the taxpayers.

Where to begin?

Bernie Sanders has the right idea.

"The sad truth of the matter is that virtually every major defense contractor in this country has, for a period of many years, been engaged in systemic, illegal, and fraudulent behavior, while receiving hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money," the independent senator from Vermont explained in a floor statement last week. "We're not talking here about the $53 million that ACORN received over 15 years. We're in fact talking about defense contractors who have received many, many billions in defense contracts and year after year, time after time, violated the law, ripping off the taxpayers of this country big time. And in some instances, these contractors have done more than ripping off the taxpayers. In some instances, they have endangered the lives and well being of the men and women who serve our country in the armed forces."

Sanders came to the debate armed with weapons that the critics of ACORN lacked: facts, figures and a sense of proportion.

"According to the Project on Government Oversight, a non-partisan, widely respected organization focusing on government waste, the three largest government contractors, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Northrop Grumman, all have a history riddled with fraud and other illegal behavior. Combined, these companies have engaged in 109 instances of misconduct just since 1995, and have paid fees and settlements for this misconduct totaling $2.9 billion. Let me repeat that - these three companies, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Northrop Grumman, have engaged in 109 instances of misconduct just since 1995, and have paid fees and settlements for this misconduct totaling $2.9 billion," said the independent senator.

Then Sanders added "the kicker: Despite violating the law time after time after time; despite being fined time after time after time -- Guess what? In 2007, their punishment was... $77 billion in government contracts, $77 billion in government contracts."

That was a sufficiently shocking figure to shame the senators into backing a Sanders-sponsored amendment to the Department of Defense appropriations bill that would require the Secretary of Defense to calculate how much money it pays out each year to corporations that have committed fraud. (Unlike with ACORN, which was targeted for punishment on the basis of embarrassing actions portrayed in videos shot by critics of the organization, this amendment applies to defense contractors that have been convicted of committing fraudulent acts or that have admitted to engaging in illegal actions taken with the purpose of defrauding the federal government.)

The Sanders amendment would also require Pentagon officials to recommend penalties for contractors that repeatedly cheat the government out of hundreds of millions – and perhaps billions – of dollars.

The acceptance by the Senate of the Sanders amendment was a significant act -- if not quite an accountability moment.

It is not often that members of Congress pick on corporations that make meaningful campaign contributions and pack their lobbying teams with former members of the House and Senate.

more...

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat/480817/bernie_sanders_applies_acorn_standard_to_defense_contractors