Robert Pollin , Professor of Economics and founding Co-Director of the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst: "...the U.S. economy certainly needs to thrive on having some type of planning, investment in research and development, and, crucially, when we have new technologies emerging, having guaranteed markets for them through the government, which is what the Pentagon has done for its technologies. Again, the most obvious case in point is the internet, which was under research and development with the Pentagon for 35 years, never brought in any money, was not commercially viable, and then it became commercially viable after many, many years of work with the Pentagon."
Pollin: "... the Pentagon, part of their industrial policy has been this brilliantly executed plan of having activities in every single congressional district in the country. So every single congressional district in the country benefits from the $700 billion military budget. If we're spending $700 billion, Paul, on the military, we cannot help but create millions of jobs. How could it be otherwise? When you spend that level of money, you're going to create a whole lot of jobs. And I would say roughly 6 million jobs in the economy are tied directly to the Pentagon spending."