U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Tim Sheehy (R-Mont.) introduced the Warrior Right to Repair Act of 2025, legislation that would require contractors to provide the Department of Defense (DoD) with access to technical data and materials the military needs to repair and maintain its own equipment.
Drop the word “military” and I’m onboard.
Boy oh boy really putting through the important shit huh? God damn do I hate our current politicians.
This is important. Rossman did an interview with a few military techs, and here are few highlights
- they couldn’t get the router password (that they own) for troubleshooting. Imagine your ISP locked you out of the router?
- it cost 200k to ship a 100k part because they weren’t allowed to fix the broken one. 300k - thats a decent sized home in some areas, just to replace a wire or something. (Look up military pricing too, I remeber seeing something about how the military pays $400 for $4 bag of fuses)
- they have to fly manufacture service techs that don’t get schematics, if they need them, an engineer is flown out who closely guards them.
Its a complete waste of taxpayer money. Money that could be redirected into more important stuff, but alas our corrupt politicians will find other things to waste it on.
We’re allowed to fix our own cars (although manufactures are trying to stop that), why can’t the military fix their own equipment or farmers fix tractors? Get a foothold in the military sector and the rest will follow.
So finally they’ve figured out that “privatization” is a shitty idea. Not only does it introduce another point of failure in logistics and operations, but the private sector doesn’t mind trying to make every contract on they can retire off of using taxpayer money.
I mean this genuinely is a good concept.
How about extending this to cover your humble civilians too
When civilians want something, it’s always “those poor corporations!”
At least with the bill focused on military you can put forward the importance of “combat readiness”, “supporting the troops”, “taxpayer dollars”, and other things that politicians often say they care about.
This is for civilians, we’re the ones paying the repair bills.
Buy military surplus equipment, I guess?
haha no
So the military has been bound by the same handcuffs that McDonalds is with it’s ice cream machines?
It was messed up that McDonalds agreed to that. It’s TERRIFYING that the group in charge of our military ever did.
McDonald’s was happy to do it because they’re not really in the restaurant owning business. They force their franchisees to use the exact ice cream machine they get paid by Taylor to enforce. It’s a literal racket
Now the military part… Yeah, that’s fucked up, I always thought Uncle Sam got the right to repair their own shit but apparently not.
mcdonalds is a real estate bussiness
I think that’s just in the US. They also have franchisees elsewhere that still have to pay for the franchise rights. They’re for sure not in the restaurant business though, at least not big time. That’s risky and costly so the franchisees get to take that risk.
The US military is not for national defense, it’s a pay pig for a handful of corporations.
idk why this is downvoted. literally all the US military does is make money for contractors, hopefully by cracking brown children’s skulls, but that’s just a bonus for them.
So the military has been bound by the same handcuffs that McDonalds is with it’s ice cream machines?
Yes… It’s funny because I worked on a platform called the MLRS. I saw what repairs to the circuitry of the GPS and other modules look like. I could have fixed it myself… by hand… The circuit boards were vietnam era looking stuff (the platform was from the 80’s, but developed during the 70s)… Meaning the trace pitch was measured in mm. Like I could pop open shit and eyeball and solder that shit with crappy $10 bargain bin soldering iron. But nah, needed to get a special civilian to show up and replace the board (they didn’t even try to fix it).
Unclear if you worked for the army, or for Mcdonalds. Either way you were probably paid about the same, and had to go to war every day.
Mcdonalds 20% less morally compromising, much worse benefits.
About the same amount of mcrib.
Yeah its absolutely wild. Even Louis Rossman has done some videos about the military’s lack of right to repair. Its insane to me that you’d buy a multi-billion dollar jet like the F-35, and legally be unable to repair it without calling in (and paying a hefty service contract for) someone from Lockheed or Pratt and Whitney to troubleshoot it. That can’t be sustainable if you do end up needing to send a ton of these things into combat
Exactly. This is completely insane. The DoD has the negotiating leverage to write these right to repair requirements into their RFPs, specifications, and contracts. The idea that their procurement offices simply failed to do this boggles my mind.
Back in the war, if you had a winning design, you were required to license it, full drawings included, to many different manufacturers at fair prices. The Defense Production Act is still on the books, and it contains a lot of power to control the economy. Why is DoD handcuffing themselves?
Not to mention the toxic incentives it creates when the vendor is the only one allowed to repair the thing they sold you. If they get a paycheck every time they repair the thing they build, then obviously they’re gonna build that thing to break.
One of the videos in question has a direct call to action to support this bill
Service contracts are where the money is at!
McDonalds made money from the deal. They were paid by Taylor to force their franchisees to use their ice cream machines with the extortionist service contract.
Laws for me, not for thee.
