Pressuring the Pentagon
The merger of Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman is in trouble, big job losses are looming at Boeing and Raytheon, and there are whispers about a new round of base closures. Now the defense industry is facing a new assault from a little-known group led by Rhino Records President Richard Foos and the famous voice of Lily Tomlin’s Ernestine.
Foos and Tomlin have joined forces with a New York group, Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities, to launch a nationwide campaign to put pressure on Congress to reduce Pentagon spending.
The campaign, which begins Wednesday, is called “Move the Money” and includes slogans such as “Military spending is still at Cold War levels . . . triple federal spending for education, crime prevention, job training and environmental protection combined.”
Rhino Records will include the messages on 10 million CDs and cassettes; Rykodisc will include it on 5.5 million CDs and cassettes; Astrojax will include it on packages for 100,000 toys; and Tweezerman will include the logos on packaging for 2.5 million tweezers, combs and clippers.
Other companies have also signed up to promote the cause on packaging, in newsletters and in catalogs. The group hopes its message will hit the average consumer at least five times a year.
The logos include a toll-free number, which connects to a recording of Tomlin’s Ernestine urging callers to “press 1” to send a fax on the matter to a congressional representative.
In trademark Ernestine form, the operator’s message is heavy on humor, at one point telling listeners, “The military experts I consort with say we can substantially lower our defense budget and still be stronger than an Altoid.”
The message, while decidedly unpopular at the Pentagon, is backed by Lawrence Korb, assistant secretary of defense from 1981 to 1985.
“This is a subject that is basically off the table these days,” Korb said at a recent luncheon in Los Angeles hosted by the Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities.
“I think that we should spend what we need to for national security, but we’re spending 90% of what we were spending, on average, during the Cold War,” Korb said. “People have the perception that [defense spending] has been cut substantially, but that’s compared to the height of the military buildup in 1985 . . . That would be like comparing spending to the height of World War II.”
Not surprisingly, others disagree.
“This seems like a broken record, and unfortunately their position is not well-informed,” said Jon Kutler, president of Quarterdeck Investment Partners, a Los Angeles firm closely aligned with defense contractors.
“Defense spending is already down significantly, and we are at risk of hollowing out our military,” Kutler said.
“If the same people would stop saying, ‘Terrible things are happening in Bosnia, terrible things are happening in Somalia, we need to do something,’ then we’d have a lot more money left over.”
