The military likes showing off its toys, and what better place than the president’s hometown? From Jared Labell at antiwar.com:
Jared Labell is executive director of Taxpayers United of America (TUA), a nonpartisan, 501(c)(4) taxpayer advocacy group. Founded in Chicago, Illinois in 1976 by activist and economist Jim Tobin, TUA works on behalf of taxpayers to reduce local, state, and federal taxes. Labell’s work has appeared on ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox television, WBBM and WBEZ radio, and published in the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, other various newspapers, and the Future of Freedom Foundation.
If the city of Chicago were a house, the State would have condemned it as blighted property long ago, bulldozing its rotten wood and crumbling concrete structure into a pile fit for a funeral pyre. Chicago hasn’t been condemned yet, despite the city’s abundance of bureaucrats, infamous history of government corruption and violence wrought upon its residents, and its atrocious financial standing. Chicago remains a dilapidated house, but one that’s on the verge of burning down in a self-inflicted economic arson fire.
With that in mind, the city will begin to close out the summer this weekend with the 58th Annual Chicago Air and Water Show on Saturday August 20th and Sunday August 21st along North Avenue Beach. Similar to the bread and circuses of empires past, Chicago annually distracts taxpayers with big, shiny objects to take their minds off of the political and economic failures of their government. This year’s free event is no different, as festivities are draped in the flag and promoted heavily with food, drinks, and fun for the entire family. Among other participants and aircraft featured in the event, the centerpiece of the show this year is the rollout of the notorious F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter.
Corporate sponsors Shell and Boeing, as well as media outlets like WBBM Newsradio, ABC 7 television, and The Chicago Tribune, help underwrite the cost of the show, making it free for the public’s enjoyment. But don’t thank these sponsors for the free entertainment just yet, because nothing is free, and when the F-35 is involved, rest assured that taxpayers are picking up the tab, one way or another.
Just a few weeks ago, Antiwar.com published my synopsis of the F-35 program – I’m Paying Taxes, But What Am I Buying? – which detailed the $400 billion jet’s beleaguered history of cost overruns, operational fiascoes, and the opportunity costs of maintaining a weapons system that’s projected to incinerate trillions of dollars from US taxpayers throughout the estimated duration of its production and deployment lifecycle.
The Straus Military Reform Project, part of the Project on Government Oversight’s Center for Defense Information, offers another detailed rundown of the most expensive weapons system in history. Readers are encouraged to become well-acquainted with the Department of Defense’s worst boondoggle, as the F-35 is a prime example of how the government misspends tax dollars at an alarming rate and with little to no accountability.
To continue reading: Bread and Circuses: The F-35 Buzzes Over Chicago
