Will anyone touch the defense budget?
As the country grapples with the severe problems posed by our skyrocketing national debt, many are asking the question: Is it time to finally start trimming back our spending on national defense? The defense budget, which has more than doubled since 2001 to over $700 billion, including war funding, is the third rail of spending ...
As the country grapples with the severe problems posed by our skyrocketing national debt, many are asking the question: Is it time to finally start trimming back our spending on national defense?
As the country grapples with the severe problems posed by our skyrocketing national debt, many are asking the question: Is it time to finally start trimming back our spending on national defense?
The defense budget, which has more than doubled since 2001 to over $700 billion, including war funding, is the third rail of spending debates. Senators have no problem cutting the foreign affairs budget or criticizing entitlement programs, but as the White House’s new National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (the Deficit Commission) gets underway, will cuts in defense spending even be considered?
The answer is yes, and they’ve just received some guidance on the problem from the head defense budget analyst at the Congressional Research Service, Steve Daggett. His presentation on the defense budget, recently submitted to the commission, can be found here.
The thrust of Daggett’s presentation is that even if defense budgets level off, which isn’t necessarily likely considering lawmakers’ track record, the Pentagon still faces severe pressures due to the rising cost of everything, and the gap between strategy and resources.
"Growing costs require difficult choices just to stay in place," he wrote, explaining that even an atmosphere with "no real growth or declining budgets would require trade-offs."
Costs of military pay and benefits rose 45 percent more than inflation over the last 10 years (now about $160,000 per troop) and the costs of weapons systems under development rose $296 billion over estimates. Operations costs are also rising, so at some point, something’s got to give.
All the options Daggett explores have drawbacks. You could cut weapons systems, but then you’ve paid a lot for less stuff. You could cut people, but tough to do when fighting two wars. It’s also tough to cut military benefits when soldiers and their families are already sacrificing so much.
Winslow Wheeler, head of the Strauss Military Reform Project at the Center for Defense Information, said the slides show that the defense department funding system has serious problems.
"The overall budget environment make it clear that more money is not available, and the historical data show that more money will actually make our problems worse," said Wheeler, "The Deficit Commission has a difficult task: How can we fix our defenses and reduce defense spending at the same time?"
Wheeler also pointed out that the commission has only one full time staffer and no website.
"One has to wonder if the White House is giving it the resources it needs to understand the issues and to properly probe the solutions," he said.
Josh Rogin covers national security and foreign policy and writes the daily Web column The Cable. His column appears bi-weekly in the print edition of The Washington Post. He can be reached for comments or tips at josh.rogin@foreignpolicy.com.
Previously, Josh covered defense and foreign policy as a staff writer for Congressional Quarterly, writing extensively on Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantánamo Bay, U.S.-Asia relations, defense budgeting and appropriations, and the defense lobbying and contracting industries. Prior to that, he covered military modernization, cyber warfare, space, and missile defense for Federal Computer Week Magazine. He has also served as Pentagon Staff Reporter for the Asahi Shimbun, Japan's leading daily newspaper, in its Washington, D.C., bureau, where he reported on U.S.-Japan relations, Chinese military modernization, the North Korean nuclear crisis, and more.
A graduate of George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs, Josh lived in Yokohama, Japan, and studied at Tokyo's Sophia University. He speaks conversational Japanese and has reported from the region. He has also worked at the House International Relations Committee, the Embassy of Japan, and the Brookings Institution.
Josh's reporting has been featured on CNN, MSNBC, C-Span, CBS, ABC, NPR, WTOP, and several other outlets. He was a 2008-2009 National Press Foundation's Paul Miller Washington Reporting Fellow, 2009 military reporting fellow with the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism and the 2011 recipient of the InterAction Award for Excellence in International Reporting. He hails from Philadelphia and lives in Washington, D.C. Twitter: @joshrogin
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