Defense Sector Contributions Locked In On Committee Members

by Niv Sultan

You couldnt blame defense contractors for being in a great mood this week.

In his speech to Congress on Tuesday, President Donald Trump who has repeatedly said he wants to build up American military dominance announced that hes sending Congress a budget that rebuilds the military, eliminates the defense sequester and calls for one of the largest increases in national defense spending in American history.

Indeed, the White House plans to recommend a $54 billion hike in defense spending, a boost of about 10 percent from current levels.

Thats not too shabby a return on investment, considering that the defense sector spent less than $29 million on political contributions in the last election cycle. Only $315,000 went to Trump, but the donations were heavily weighted toward Republicans , as they have been for the last several cycles.

Of course, defense s $29 million in contributions pales in comparison to, say, the financial sector, which is stuffed with deep-pocketed financial firms and individuals who have reaped riches from gambling on the markets; they injected upwards of $1 billion into the accounts of candidates, parties, outside spending groups and other committees in 2016. Two companies Renaissance Technologies and Paloma Partners each contributed more than the entire defense sector, mainly through ultra-wealthy partners at the firms.

If defense interests spent relatively little on political contributions, however, that doesnt mean that they did an inadequate job pursuing their goals. While White House budgets are sometimes considered little more than amusing suggestions by Congress, which controls the purse strings, the industry has fierce defenders on Capitol Hill.

In Congress, its never about the magnitude of the money as much as it is about the strategic placement of your contributions, said Meredith McGehee, chief of policy at Issue One.

The top heavyweights in the field Lockheed Martin , Boeing , Northrop Grumman and Raytheon have consistently demonstrated that truth. Since 2009, theyve accounted for about 40 percent of the defense sectors political contributions, having given candidates a total of over $42 million. In the 2016 cycle, they contributed almost $12 million, or 41 percent of the sectors overall giving.

These companies, like other defense firms, primarily target two types of recipients: Those who serve on the House or Senate Armed Services committees, and those who are on the Appropriations panels, the latter of which oversee bills allocating government spending.

Lawmakers who sat on the Armed Services committees in the 114th Congress received a combined total of almost $4.5 million from those four companies, led by Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) at roughly $185,000. (Note that figures for senators in this post include funds given over their six-year terms; House cycles are two years. Also, they dont include Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), as he ran for president; his White House campaign received more than than $244,000 in gifts from the quartet of defense giants.)

Overall, defense, through both PACs and individuals associated with companies in the sector, gave members of the Armed Services panels almost $10 million dollars in contributions. Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas), the chair of the Houses committee, netted nearly $394,000 the most money from the sector of any member of Congress. He even bested all of last years presidential candidates except Hillary Clinton (over $1 million) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) (almost $418,000).

Lawmakers on Appropriations panels were on the welcoming end of $8 million. Overall, defense interests gave members of the Appropriations and Armed Services committees in both chambers close to $18 million in contributions, or more than 62 percent of their total federal giving.

Every one of the top 15 recipients of defense money in the 2016 cycle sat on an Armed Services or Appropriations committee.

Bill Hartung, director of the arms and security project at the Center for International Policy, described that phenomenon.

A lot of members on Armed Services committees get on them because they have a military base or a major contractor in their districts, he said. They want to keep the money flowing to the companies in their state or district, and contractors sweeten the deal by giving them huge contributions.

For lawmakers, the situation is a win-win: They get money from defense contractors, and they gain the loyalty of their constituents by bringing or keeping jobs. Defense scratches their backs, and they scratch back. But that relationship can shift priorities away from streamlining the governments defense budget.

Probably the most egregious thing theyll do is theyll add money for weapons that the Pentagon hasnt even asked for, like the M1 tank which is being built in Ohio. So you can have liberal Democrats like Sherrod Brown lobbying for more tanks because theyre in their states, he said.

Since 2009, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) has received $10,005 from General Dynamics , which manufactures the M1 Abrams tank in Lima, Ohio.

It gets even a little bit worse because they have this process thats logrolling: You vote for the system in my state, and Ill vote for the system in your state, continued Hartung. Then high levels of spending get locked in, including on things that we dont need.

Its therefore unlikely that defense companies are alone in cheering on Trumps spending plans; plenty of lawmakers have reason to rejoice, too. Never mind that, in Hartungs words, spending on weapons is the least effective way to create jobs of any form of government spending.

If youre sitting in a district and your choice is a military contract or no military contract, you would want that, he said. But if Trump actually had a comprehensive economic strategy to create jobs across the country, he wouldnt have to fall back on pumping money into weapons.

Tanks and jets and guns, oh my!

Trump has said a great deal about the beleaguered F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, developed by Lockheed Martin. The F-35 program has had myriad problems, ranging from exorbitant costs to delays to unreliable machinery . (Hartung called it junk.) Luckily for Lockheed Martin, the F-35 has found a friend in the Houses Joint Strike Fighter Caucus . The bipartisan group, according to its initial announcement , stands by the F-35 despite its issues because of both national security and the high-skilled jobs it has created.

Caucus members have also, naturally, attracted the spending of the defense sector.

On Oct. 4, 2016, 70 representatives signed a letter to the leadership of the House Defense Appropriations subcommittee urging continued support for the program. In the 2016 cycle, those 70 lawmakers received nearly $3.5 million from the defense sector; Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas), who was one of the caucus two founders, topped the group with more than $271,000. Only one signer Rep. Rob Woodall (R-Ga.) did not get defense money last cycle.

The median contribution received by all House candidates from the defense sector in the 2016 cycle was $10,000; the median for the caucus letters signers was nearly $31,000.

Lockheed Martin, the F-35s builder, was Grangers top overall donor, at $125,000 and she was the companys top congressional recipient. The F-35 is manufactured in Fort Worth, Texas, in Grangers congressional district.

Letter-signers collectively received a total of almost $578,000 from Lockheed Martin in the 2016 cycle, nearly 17 percent of their defense dollars. But no one got remotely as much in contributions as Granger did; in second place was Rep. Robert Wittman (R-Va.), who received less than $13,000.

Grangers office did not respond to requests for comment.

Tanks and jets arent built on contributions alone, though; for that reason, defense puts juice into its lobbying , and spent almost $127 million in the 2016 cycle. The sector lobbied predominantly on authorization and appropriations acts, which makes sense: That legislation influences the budgets of the mammoth Defense and Energy departments, which give out and oversee billions in defense contracts.

More significant than lobbying spending is the fact that, among the Center for Responsive Politics sector categories (like finance, health and labor), defense has the highest percentage of lobbyists who are revolvers: former federal employees who take on lobbying work. With 62 percent of federally-registered defense lobbyists having entered through the revolving door , the sector exerts vast influence on Congress.

And then there are the shadow lobbyists, like Trumps nominee for Air Force secretary, former Rep. Heather Wilson (R-N.M.). Wilson has consulted for nuclear weapons labs, including one owned by Lockheed Martin. Over the course of the lawmakers six-term career, Lockheed Martin made almost $141,000 in contributions to her; the company, including individuals associated with it, was her largest donor.

Earlier this month, Trumps choices for Army and Navy secretaries, Vincent Viola and Philip Bilden, respectively, withdrew their nominations due to their personal financial entanglements.

Researchers Doug Weber and Dan Auble contributed to this post.