Abstract
So, you survived the battle of Florida and now it's time make good on your promise to strengthen national defense. But you also have to pay for all the other items you promised–tax cuts, prescription drugs, improvements in education–stuff people actually care about. And those projected surpluses never end up being as big as hoped.
Luckily for you, there's another way. You can have your rhetorical campaign-trail cake and eat it, too. Here's how:
There's so much fat to trim at the Pentagon that you can actually save billions without weakening national defense at all. In fact, you might even strengthen military might.
First and foremost, the Pentagon has to straighten out its books. Accounting at the Defense Department is horrific. Defense wastes billions of dollars while hurting military readiness, promoting incompetence, and encouraging fraud and abuse. A March 2000 report by the Pentagon's Inspector General found that only $2.6 trillion of a total of $6.9 trillion in accounting entries could be fully documented. And $2.3 trillion worth of entries were “not supported by adequate audit trails or sufficient evidence to determine their validity.” In May 2000 the General Accounting Office reported that “58 percent of the on-hand items, or an estimated $36.9 billion of [Defense's] reported secondary inventory, exceeded requirements.” In other words, the Pentagon already has $37 billion worth of paraphernalia it doesn't need. And that's just the stuff they know about.
The same GAO report found that Defense cannot “account for billions of dollars of inventory and national defense assets, primarily weapons systems and support equipment.” For example, the navy simply wrote off $3 billion worth of equipment as lost in transit when the vast majority of it had been delivered. The air force is missing items worth $2.9 billion that are in the possession of contractors. Financial reports omit billions in equipment, including $5.7 billion in army communication materials and $7.6 billion in navy aircraft engines.
These examples–absurd as they may seem–are not isolated; their effects are real. It is impossible to budget accurately for and plan military operations when billions of dollars in equipment is “missing.”
Second, you need to tackle the increased role played by political and parochial interests in determining defense spending. As the most powerful man in the world, try using your influence to push for everything from another round of base closures that will save at least $3 billion annually to the removal of “Buy America” provisions that force the Pentagon to spend billions extra on domestically produced equipment.
Pork barrel spending is the brunt of many a joke, but its impact is no laughing matter. According to Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, Congress added $7 billion in unrequested spending to the fiscal 2001 Defense Appropriations bill. Two billion dollars was sneaked into the bill after it had been approved by the Senate and the House. A small group of politicians, acting behind closed doors, added $2 billion for programs that no one in the Pentagon, and no one else in the House or the Senate, wanted. These programs were never approved until the entire bill faced a single up-or-down vote.
When dealing with $300-billion-plus budgets, it's easy to lose sight of just how much $7 billion is. By way of comparison, though, $7 billion is more than the defense budgets of Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Yugoslavia, Cuba, and Sudan combined. Unrequested pork alone roughly equals the combined budgets of the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Agency, and the Immigration & Naturalization Service. Seven billion dollars would easily pay for the readiness shortfalls cited by the Pentagon in its annual unfunded wish list.
Which brings us to another problem: the Wish List. Every year the Pentagon takes its list of billion-dollar projects you didn't think were necessary and submits it directly to Congress, a maneuver that undermines your budget authority. The whole system has become so politicized that last year's list included funding for Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott's Mississippi-built $1.2 billion helicopter carrier, despite its limited military value. Reining in the Pentagon's Christmas list would go a long way in curtailing the ability of Congress to add pork barrel spending. Instead of simply complaining about pork and excess bases while signing spending bills into law as your predecessor did, you could put real pressure on Congress to show some restraint.
Of course, unlike the previous administration, you should not be complicit in wasteful practices by continuing to fund weapons that are Cold War relics. Pentagon planners and members of Congress are still frozen in Cold War thinking. Big guns, big wars, and big budgets still dominate strategy sessions.
You need to change that. It's a tall order, but the impetus for change won't come from the Pentagon, and it certainly won't originate in the pork-happy Congress. Even Defense News, no softy on defense, called for “eliminating Cold War-era weapons” in a November 20, 2000 commentary. Here are some pointers to get you started:
A DIFFERENT TAKE
“Taking Charge, Bipartisan Panel Offers National Security Action Plan for the President-Elect,” Rand Corporation report
While it's easy to promise more money for defense, it will take much more than rhetoric to improve the military. Budget increases simply send the message–loud and clear–that current practices are not only acceptable, but encouraged. Resolving these and other issues is not just a fiscal matter. Failure to address rampant waste leads to more waste, which opens the door for massive fraud and abuse.
Besides, with all the other promises you made during the campaign–all much higher priorities for Americans than national defense–you're going to need every cent you can find.