Thursday, January 13, 2011
It’s not so much a matter of what Lockheed Martin does for the U.S. government, but what it doesn’t do. The super-sized defense contractor does, to say the least, a lot of business with Uncle Sam, who has been very generous towards the company…and it has expanded beyond defense.
In 2008 alone, Lockheed Martin earned $36 billion in federal contracts. It is the number one contractor for the departments of Defense and Energy, number two for the State Department, number three for NASA and number four for the departments of Justice and Housing and Urban Development. Its government clientele also includes the Department of Agriculture, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), Environmental Protection Agency, CIA, FBI, IRS, National Security Agency, Census Bureau, Postal Service and about a dozen others.
The company has trained airport security screeners and provided interrogators for U.S. overseas prisons, as well as manufactured guided missiles, cluster bombs, nuclear weapons, advanced fighter aircraft, space vehicles and many, many, many more types of weapons and military equipment.
It does all of this with a workforce of 140,000 employees and a business presence in 46 of the 50 states, which is an ideal way to make friends with a large number of congressional representatives, who always want to bring jobs to their constituents.
Spending millions of dollars each year on lobbying politicians in both parties hasn’t hurt either. Lockheed also leads the nation in contractor misconduct, having been penalized 54 times since 1995 for a total of $577 million.
-Noel Brinkerhoff, David Wallechinsky
Lockheed Martin's Shadow Government (by William Hartung, TomDispatch.com)
Contracts to Lockheed Martin Corp (FY 2000-2009) (FedSpending.org)
Lockheed Martin Political Donations and Lobbying (OpenSecrets.org)
NASA Sued over Small Business Contracts with Defense Giants (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)
Fighter Jet Costs Jump 50%, Triggering Congressional Review and Lockheed Defense (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)
Clinton Finds New Business in India for Lockheed, Boeing, GE, Westinghouse (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)
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