It is, but despite it being coined by a former US President and WW2 Allied General, it is now taken to mean something akin to "defund the military".

Eisenhower wasn't exactly praising it when he coined the term, and the military and military-industrial-complex are different things. You can support one but not the other, although most people who use it in conversation tend to be against both, since it's implicitly pejorative.

It has a bad rap because of the lobbying that defense companies do to ensure their profits are fed by the government. Oh and the wars.

I'd say they're equivalent to Big Pharma or Big Oil - all of which have captured any regulatory agency designed to control their misbehaviors.

Could you clarify? I'm having trouble understanding the equivalency because "Military industry complex" is a noun and "defund the military" is a verb (more-or-less)

I believe rchaud meant that the set of people using the term "military industrial complex" has a large overlap with the set of people demanding to "defund the military".

For those unfamiliar with it, it was President Eisenhower's farewell speech:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eisenhower%27s_farewell_addres...

In what circles does it mean that? I’ve never heard that one.

Among politicians. Military spending is the one thing that never sees top-line cuts, even among so-called fiscal conservatives in Congress that are otherwise happy to slash "wasteful" federal funding for social programs.

You can lobby all you want to cut other types of government 'pork', and you'll probably have some champions in Congress on the same page. Only the military is untouchable. It's un-American to even consider cuts in that sector.