Congress ought to freeze Pentagon spending
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William D. Hartung is a senior analysis fellow on the Quincy Institute for Accountable Statecraft.
Final week, Congress handed the debt ceiling deal reached by President Joe Biden and Home Speaker Kevin McCarthy, and the winner is — the Pentagon!
Whereas the remainder of the federal discretionary finances is slated to be frozen at roughly this yr’s degree, the Pentagon and associated spending on nuclear weapons on the Division of Vitality can be exempted from the freeze. Navy spending can be set at $886 billion, the quantity requested by the Biden administration for fiscal yr 2024. This represents an historic excessive — tons of of billions of {dollars} greater than on the peaks of the Korean or Vietnam wars or the peak of the Chilly Struggle, adjusted for inflation.
An evaluation of the brand new settlement by the Wall Road Journal signifies that the Pentagon and veteran’s spending — neither of which can be topic to the freeze — will high $1 trillion, whereas the entire remaining discretionary packages can be left to separate $637 billion. This may imply that public well being, environmental safety, vitamin, housing, transportation and many of the different main features of the federal government must battle over lower than 40 p.c of the discretionary finances. This received’t be practically sufficient to account for inflation, a lot much less meet the various unmet wants of nearly all of American households.
It doesn’t need to be this manner. We’re dramatically overspending on the Pentagon relative to our real protection wants.
The challenges posed by China are primarily political and financial, not army. And on the army entrance america spends about thrice as a lot on its army as China does, and has main allies in East Asia that may shoulder a part of the burden of deterring Beijing, from Australia to Japan to South Korea. The U.S. stockpile of nuclear warheads is 13 instances as giant as China’s, and the U.S. Navy has way more firepower. If China is the Pentagon’s “‘pacing menace,” it’s time to sluggish the tempo of America’s army buildup and give attention to different pressing nationwide wants.
Finally, it might be as much as the Pentagon and the army providers to resolve how one can implement a finances freeze, however there are ample choices to select from in trimming Pentagon outlays. Tens of billions might be saved by decreasing the division’s greater than 500,000 personal contract workers; slowing the tempo of the Pentagon’s three decades-long, $1.7 trillion plan to construct a brand new era of nuclear weapons; modestly decreasing the dimensions of the Military within the face of great recruiting issues; and taking fast steps to stem contractor value gouging, which was portrayed intimately in a current report by CBS’s “60 Minutes” program.
Over the longer-term the U.S. wants a extra real looking technique that elevates diplomacy and reduces the penchant for abroad army interventions, however the steps outlined above could be essentially the most sensible choices for freezing Pentagon spending within the short-term.
Congress ought to at the least guard towards additional will increase. The $886 billion in army spending contained within the debt ceiling settlement might find yourself being only the start. There may be prone to be an emergency bundle of army assist for Ukraine later this yr — a crucial step in supporting Kyiv’s have to defend itself from Russian aggression. However Congress ought to make it possible for the bundle doesn’t get larded down with Pentagon pet tasks that don’t have anything to do with defending Ukraine. That’s what occurred with the warfare finances — identified formally because the Abroad Contingency Operations account — in the course of the Iraq and Afghan wars. The outcome was a slush fund that opened the best way for tens of billions in extra spending past the finances caps that have been imagined to be in place to maintain the Pentagon finances inside affordable bounds. Congress shouldn’t make that mistake once more.
Most significantly, Congress ought to modify the finances freeze and trim the Pentagon finances within the appropriations course of that may play out over the rest of this yr.
