Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont had his own reaction to the scandal that led Congress to defund ACORN, the multi-state anti-poverty and voting rights organization. Freelance videos recently purported to show ACORN employees giving advice on how to evade taxes and run prostitution enterprises, and the group is being investigated for mismanagement of money.
But, Sanders asks, where's the outrage when misbehaving defense contractors bilk the country of billions?
Sanders two weeks ago got an amendment through Congress that aims to apply the same standard used to remove ACORN's funding to defense firms. The amendment would require the Defense Department to calculate how much money is paid contractors that have defrauded the country, and recommend penalties.
Sanders pointed out that "…virtually every major defense contractor in this country has… been engaged in systemic, illegal, and fraudulent behavior. … 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."
Sanders cited information from the Project on Government Oversight showing that the country's three largest defense firms, Northrop Grumman, Boeing and Lockheed Martin, have been charged with "misconduct" in 109 cases since 1995, and have paid a combined $2.9 billion in "fees and settlements." Despite that, said Sanders, "In 2007, their 'punishment' was . . . $77 billion in government contracts."
And the misconduct wasn't just technical. Sanders pointed to an incident in which Boeing agreed to a settlement of $54 million following charges that it put defective gears in more than 140 Chinook helicopters later sold to the army—a situation that recalls the Arthur Miller play All My Sons. One of those helicopters crashed during a mission in Honduras, killing five soldiers.
