Abstract
There he goes again. Yes, once again President Bill Clinton has outflanked the Republicans, depriving them of an important election issue.
While most attention in national security circles was focused on the question of deploying a national missile defense and/or the defeat of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, in February Clinton proposed a $305.4 billion military budget in fiscal year 2001—an increase of $12 billion over fiscal 2000. (The military budget includes the budgets of the Defense Department, intelligence, the Energy Department's military programs, and a few smaller programs.) The administration now projects rising defense budgets—including $368 billion in fiscal 2009, long after this president has finished writing his memoirs.
Congressional Republicans had been planning to use Clinton's Pentagon budget to prove that the Democrats were “weak on defense.” But now, squeezed between the higherthan-anticipated Clinton request for the military and their own party's need to hold down government spending to fund a big election-year tax cut and “protect Social Security,” there is not a lot of loose change to channel to the Pentagon. And in an election year, most Republicans are not willing to risk a confrontation with the president by trying to cut education, health, or other social programs.
Curt Weldon, a Republican from Pennsylvania and a member of the House Armed Services Committee, complained to a Congressional Quarterly reporter:
“The president knew what he had to do politically. In the last year of his presidency, he increased defense after criticizing us” for the same practice in previous years.
The budget itself is worth examining. After the military budget declined some 30 percent (in real terms) from its Reagan-era high in 1985, politicians and military leaders “discovered” a readiness crisis two years ago, which they used to justify higher military spending.
The V-22 tilt-rotor aircraft, with a projected cost of $36 billion, is one of five new aircraft programs on the current Pentagon wish list.
There were sob stories about army divisions not ready to fight, inadequate funds for training, and a lack of spare parts to keep equipment running. Under Republican attack for letting military forces deteriorate, the president committed additional funds to the Pentagon over the past two years.
Defense Secretary William Cohen now brags about the Pentagon's renewed emphasis on “people programs.” When he pitched the budget to the House Armed Services Committee on February 13, he rhapsodized: “The life blood of America's defense posture will continue to be the individual soldier, sailor, airman, and marine. Their high quality remains essential to future U.S. security.”
The rhetoric, however, masks the reality. Buying new weapons still comes first.
For the seven-year period from fiscal 1999 to 2005 the administration proposes a $38 billion increase for the Defense Department. During that period, procurement will be increased by nearly 40 percent. Of the $38 billion increase, 53 percent will be used to purchase new weapons.
On the other hand, “Operations and Maintenance”—the primary account that funds readiness—will take a cut of 3.5 percent in fiscal 2002 and remain relatively stagnant through fiscal 2005 in current dollars. Family housing will suffer significant cuts in real terms until it levels off in fiscal 2003.
Despite the unprecedented economic expansion of recent years, major defense contractors have been tormented by plummeting stock values. In a February 7 press conference, Cohen conceded, “We are putting more money into procurement, and that will help the defense industries.”
So poverty-stricken are these multibillion dollar companies that the Pentagon is once again purchasing weapons it does not need. At the February 7 press conference, Cohen claimed that hundreds of millions of dollars would be saved by not shutting down the C-130J production line, even though “there is not an existing requirement right now for the number of C-130Js.”
Boeing, whose own wish list was not fully funded, was furious at the subsidy for Lockheed Martin, the manufacturer of the C-130J cargo plane. A senior Boeing official was quoted in the February 10 St. Louis Post Dispatch as saying that the C-130J purchase was “a bailout of Lockheed for not performing well.”
The largest weapons program in the next fiscal year is missile defense, both national and theater. The fiscal 2001 request for national missile defense is $1.9 billion; all forms of missile defense add up to $4.7 billion. The request includes procurement funds to begin work at an Alaskan site, should the president decide this summer or fall to deploy a national missile defense system.
Cold War-style weapons still play a prominent role in the new budget. Despite the controversy last year over the air force's F-22 fighter—the House temporarily cut out procurement funds—the program is back to speed. The president is asking for $4 billion for an initial production run of 10 planes, plus continued research.
Meanwhile, procurement of 42 of the navy's prize fighter, the F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet, is planned at a cost of $3.1 billion. Both aircraft were conceived in the 1980s to confront the long-gone Soviet air force.
Despite continued White House and congressional emphasis on high-technology and expensive weapons, which produce visible jobs, the Pentagon cannot afford its own weapons wish list.
In fiscal 2001, the Pentagon will finally reach its long-stated goal of spending $60 billion annually for procurement of new weapons systems. But the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the Defense Department would need $90 billion a year to fully fund its wish list.
The new budget fails to acknowledge that reality. Current Pentagon plans call for spending $440 billion over the next two decades for five new aircraft programs: the Joint Strike Fighter ($250 billion), the F-22 ($63 billion), the F/A-18 E/F ($47 billion), the Comanche helicopter ($43 billion), and the V-22 tilt-rotor helicopter ($36 billion).
Few members of Congress are likely to focus on these minor details. Democrats who might otherwise be critics of high levels of military spending in an era when even the Pentagon has a hard time identifying a realistic “threat” have been loathe to go to the left of Bill Clinton.
And in an election year in which Democrats hope to focus on education, health care, and Social Security, few will want to raise excessive military spending as a political issue.
Similarly, the Republicans are likely to ignore calls for even more military spending. On February 11, the Joints Chiefs of Staff submitted a letter to Congress detailing a grab bag of $15.5 billion in additional programs. The chairmen of the two armed services committees, Sen. John Warner of Virginia and Cong. Floyd Spence of South Carolina, asked the budget committees for more money.
Former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) chimed in with a report in January arguing that the administration's defense plan was underfunded by a whopping $100 billion annually.
But in an election season, these partisans of even higher military spending are as likely to be ignored as are advocates of decreased military spending.
The key questions—about the size and purpose of the military budget, and what programs would best meet future threats—will be put off to the next administration.
But don't expect dramatic changes next year. The presumptive nominees of the major parties, George W. Bush and Al Gore, Jr., have both called for increased military spending.