Abstract
When President George W. Bush presented his proposed fiscal year 2005 military budget to Congress in early February, the figures led to the most serious debate on defense spending since the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. But the discussion has resulted in more heat than light.
The administration requested $420.7 billion for the Defense Department and the Energy Department's nuclear weapons functions–an increase of 7.9 percent above current levels.
The largest single program is missile defense–for which the administration made the greatest single-year request in American history–$10.7 billion. The defense budget also includes large sums for weapons designed during the Cold War that are of questionable merit in light of the threats of today: $4.7 billion for the air force's F-22 jet fighter, $2.6 billion for a new Virginia-class submarine, and $1.8 billion for the Osprey, the navy and marine's infamous V-22 tilt-rotor helicopter.
The Pentagon's annual budget has grown $110 billion from the first year of the Bush administration, an increase of 35 percent without adjusting for inflation. And the total is projected to rise to more than $500 billion by fiscal 2009. The new budget is about 12 percent higher than the average Cold War budget.
Further food for thought: At this point, the United States accounts for nearly half of the world's military expenditures; the U.S. budget, combined with that of its allies, accounts for two-thirds.
And the $420.7 billion total is deceptively small. The administration has refused to disclose the figure to be requested for funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld claimed that he had no idea what the costs would be. (Somehow, though, Josh Bolten, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, was able to come up with a ballpark estimate of $50 billion for the next fiscal year.)
On February 12, Virginia Democrat James Moran, a House Defense Appropriations Committee member, said of the administration's silence on funding for Iraq and Afghanistan: “To wait until after the presidential election is blatantly playing politics.” Or, as Wisconsin's David Obey, the ranking Democrat on the full House Appropriations Committee, put it, “This budget is no more a budget than a chorus of kazoos is the Marine Band.”
That the military budget is receiving more scrutiny is directly related to rising concern over the spiraling federal budget deficit. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the budget deficit will be $477 billion this fiscal year, with a $362 billion deficit in fiscal 2005. Large tax cuts for the wealthy, combined with the rising costs of wars and the battle against terrorism, plus the lethargic economy, have produced huge budget deficits–and those deficits are projected to continue for years to come.
Conservative organizations and budget watchers who had refused to face up to the deficit issue (despite complaining loudly during the Clinton years) began criticizing the administration. Politicians noticed these complaints and changing public opinion. When a New York Times/CBS poll released March 16 asked: “How serious a problem do you think the budget deficit is for the country right now–very serious, somewhat serious, not too serious, or not at all serious?”–86 percent replied very or somewhat serious.
And public support for military spending is beginning to decline. A Gallup poll released on March 4 concluded that a growing number of Americans are again saying the government is spending too much on defense. The poll found that nearly half of Americans, 45 percent, still approve the current level of spending. But, Gallup reported, “For the first time in more than a decade, far more Americans are saying that ‘too much’ (31 percent) rather than ‘too little’ (22 percent) is being spent on defense, and the percentage saying ‘too much’ is the highest since 1999.”
Yet even as some of the public and a few members of Congress were beginning to question the size of the military budget, the Pentagon was whining that the budget was too low to encompass its entire weapons wish list. Rumsfeld argued on March 8 that cutting the military budget might save money in the short run, but lead to massive costs in the future: “These investments are significant, to be sure, but they pale compared to the cost in lives and treasure of another attack like the one on September 11.”
In fact, the Pentagon does feel squeezed because it is trying to acquire more weapons than $420.7 billion will cover. The army followed up the death of its Crusader artillery system last year by killing the $39 billion Comanche helicopter program that–surprise, surprise–was way over budget and far behind schedule.
In the midst of these conflicting arguments, budget hawks won some preliminary rounds, but ultimately were forced to back off. In early March, Chairman Don Nickles, Republican of Oklahoma, managed to win Senate Budget Committee approval of a revised budget aimed at deficit reduction that included a trim of $7 billion from the president's defense request, leaving the increase at “only” 5 percent.
The chairmen of the military committees began to howl; Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens of Alaska said he would ignore any budget committee attempts to trim the military budget.
In this heated political environment, Democrats felt they could not afford to be caught voting “against” military spending. In an overwhelming reversal of the Budget Committee stance, the Senate voted 95-4 on March 10 to restore the $7 billion. The 95 included staunch liberals like California's Barbara Boxer, Iowa's Tom Harkin, Illinois' Dick Durbin–and presidential candidate John Kerry. The ranking Democrat on the Budget Committee, Kent Conrad of North Dakota, provided the rationale: “I believe we must raise the defense expenditure level to meet the request of the Commander-in-Chief when we have troops in combat half a world away fighting day and night for this country.” The only dissidents were New Hampshire Republican Judd Gregg, Vermont Independent Jim Jeffords, West Virginia Democrat Robert Byrd, and Delaware Democrat Tom Carper.
House Budget Committee Chairman Jim Nussle's proposal to trim a mere $2 billion didn't even get out of his committee.
The presidential campaign is bringing more focus to the military budget. President Bush, in an unexpected neck-and-neck race with putative Democratic nominee John Kerry of Massachusetts, began hitting Kerry hard on the issue of national security.
Bush may have felt he had no choice: A Washington Post poll released on February 13 shows that while most issues are working in favor of Democrats, the president scores much higher than Kerry for his ability to handle the campaign against terrorism and the situation in Iraq. However, Kerry is trusted over Bush in handling the economy, job creation, education, and health insurance. Small wonder that the president is trying to connect every issue to terrorism.
Therefore, it was not surprising that the first Bush negative campaign ad against Kerry, which began on March 12, claimed that Kerry “wanted to delay defending America until the United Nations approved,” and suggested that Kerry is “wrong on taxes” and “wrong on defense.”
President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and numerous Republican functionaries began delivering hard-hitting speeches. Employing similar tactics to those used in hawking pre-Iraq War intelligence, Republicans cherry-picked Kerry votes from his 20-year Senate career to find occasions when Kerry endorsed cuts in the military and intelligence budgets.
Kerry's primary response has been to point to his Vietnam War record, explain his voting record, and attack Bush, as he did on February 24: “It's clear that George Bush can't defend his record. His credibility is running out, and he's distorting votes from 20 years ago because he can't defend his own indefensible record today.”
All this adds up to the conclusion that the military budget may not be sacrosanct much longer. It also suggests that in 2005, no matter who is president, the Pentagon's gravy train will begin to slow.