thedrifter
03-01-04, 08:41 AM
02-27-2004
The ‘Big Lie’ over Defense Spending
First in an occasional series
By Jim Simpson
Far from the dusty back alleys of Baghdad and the mountainous valleys of Afghanistan, the annual struggle to enact a new defense budget has begun in the halls of Congress and the Pentagon. But what happens – or does not occur – in Washington, D.C. over the next six months will determine whether our young men and women in uniform get the support they deserve for the wars we have sent them to fight.
Any discussion of the defense budget inevitably boils down to debates about the U.S. military’s overall priorities, size and impact on non-defense federal spending. But as Gen. Maxwell Taylor warned more than 40 years ago, the DoD budget “is far more than a compilation of dusty figures of interest only to fiscal experts. It should be a translation into dollars of the military strategy on which our future security will depend.”
Still, we live in contentious times and this is especially true in the annual battle for the U.S. government’s budget, where competition for federal dollars is fiercer today than perhaps at any time in our history.
In this and succeeding articles over the months ahead, I intend to show that what passes for “debate” in the mainstream news media over defense spending is no such thing. Rather, it is a two-way verbal artillery barrage that cloaks the facts in political rhetoric and does little to illuminate the genuine issues confronting Americans in uniform and U.S. taxpayers alike.
While it may seem far removed from the concerns of the troops to examine the overall DoD budget (and ignore for now specific issues that concern people in uniform directly), this is not the case: The debate over fundamental budget issues is important precisely because its outcome will determine the fate of those individual budget components ranging from new fighter jets to armoring Humvees for patrol duty in Iraq.
I intend to show here that the government’s own budget history contains solid proof that the nation can afford significant increases in defense spending – but only if the government can rein in runaway entitlement budgets, the real threat.
The table below outlines the FY 2005 president’s defense budget proposal by major function. The $401.7 billion in budget authority represents an increase of 7 percent over the FY 2004 Defense appropriation. The FY 2005 request includes big increases in Operations and Maintenance and Personnel, including a 3.5-percent across-the-board pay raise and elimination of the average 18-percent out-of-pocket expense for off-base private housing.
This baseline proposal does not include additional dollars required to maintain our operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Supplemental money for that purpose was appropriated for FY 2004 and more will be requested for FY 2005 in continued support of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and further activities in Afghanistan. It also does not include defense-related activities of the Departments of Energy and Homeland Security or other agencies.
* Includes $3.5 billion rescission to the fiscal 2003 Iraq Freedom Fund.
** Includes $1.8 billion rescission to DoD appropriations in fiscal 2004 Omnibus Appropriations Act.
*** Also includes $.8 billion in prior-year program rescissions to Procurement, RDT&E, Military Construction, Family Housing and National Defense Sealift Fund.
The R&D function includes $1.5 billion in increased funding for anti-ballistic missile defense, of which the first rudimentary system is forecasted to begin deployment this year. This is an increase of over 19 percent from 2004. The Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) will receive funding of $4.6 billion for continued development and testing. The F/A-22 program will receive $4.7 billion for the purchase of 24 aircraft.
Many pundits are decrying the “vast” increase in military spending requested in the president’s FY 2005 budget. They foresee economic calamity ahead as defense and tax cut-driven deficits push us toward an abyss of debt. They question the need for such a large budget in light of our victory in the Cold War. But what has been the pattern of defense spending over the past fifty years and what does it reveal?
Chart I below shows real defense spending since 1950 in both inflation-adjusted dollars and as a percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the broadest measure of our nation’s domestic output. The solid blue line represents defense outlays in inflation-adjusted dollars while the dotted green line represents defense outlays as a percent of GDP. Both data series clearly show the periods of post-World War II buildup: Korea, Vietnam, Reagan and the War on Terror; as well as periods of decline: post-Korea, post-Vietnam and Post-Cold War. Each series has a trend line (in black) bisecting it, which shows the average increase/decrease of the series over time.
Read More......
http://www.sftt.org/cgi-bin/csNews/csNews.cgi?database=DefenseWatch.db&command=viewone&op=t&id=385&rnd=110.25997883827421
Sempers,
Roger
:marine:
The ‘Big Lie’ over Defense Spending
First in an occasional series
By Jim Simpson
Far from the dusty back alleys of Baghdad and the mountainous valleys of Afghanistan, the annual struggle to enact a new defense budget has begun in the halls of Congress and the Pentagon. But what happens – or does not occur – in Washington, D.C. over the next six months will determine whether our young men and women in uniform get the support they deserve for the wars we have sent them to fight.
Any discussion of the defense budget inevitably boils down to debates about the U.S. military’s overall priorities, size and impact on non-defense federal spending. But as Gen. Maxwell Taylor warned more than 40 years ago, the DoD budget “is far more than a compilation of dusty figures of interest only to fiscal experts. It should be a translation into dollars of the military strategy on which our future security will depend.”
Still, we live in contentious times and this is especially true in the annual battle for the U.S. government’s budget, where competition for federal dollars is fiercer today than perhaps at any time in our history.
In this and succeeding articles over the months ahead, I intend to show that what passes for “debate” in the mainstream news media over defense spending is no such thing. Rather, it is a two-way verbal artillery barrage that cloaks the facts in political rhetoric and does little to illuminate the genuine issues confronting Americans in uniform and U.S. taxpayers alike.
While it may seem far removed from the concerns of the troops to examine the overall DoD budget (and ignore for now specific issues that concern people in uniform directly), this is not the case: The debate over fundamental budget issues is important precisely because its outcome will determine the fate of those individual budget components ranging from new fighter jets to armoring Humvees for patrol duty in Iraq.
I intend to show here that the government’s own budget history contains solid proof that the nation can afford significant increases in defense spending – but only if the government can rein in runaway entitlement budgets, the real threat.
The table below outlines the FY 2005 president’s defense budget proposal by major function. The $401.7 billion in budget authority represents an increase of 7 percent over the FY 2004 Defense appropriation. The FY 2005 request includes big increases in Operations and Maintenance and Personnel, including a 3.5-percent across-the-board pay raise and elimination of the average 18-percent out-of-pocket expense for off-base private housing.
This baseline proposal does not include additional dollars required to maintain our operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Supplemental money for that purpose was appropriated for FY 2004 and more will be requested for FY 2005 in continued support of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and further activities in Afghanistan. It also does not include defense-related activities of the Departments of Energy and Homeland Security or other agencies.
* Includes $3.5 billion rescission to the fiscal 2003 Iraq Freedom Fund.
** Includes $1.8 billion rescission to DoD appropriations in fiscal 2004 Omnibus Appropriations Act.
*** Also includes $.8 billion in prior-year program rescissions to Procurement, RDT&E, Military Construction, Family Housing and National Defense Sealift Fund.
The R&D function includes $1.5 billion in increased funding for anti-ballistic missile defense, of which the first rudimentary system is forecasted to begin deployment this year. This is an increase of over 19 percent from 2004. The Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) will receive funding of $4.6 billion for continued development and testing. The F/A-22 program will receive $4.7 billion for the purchase of 24 aircraft.
Many pundits are decrying the “vast” increase in military spending requested in the president’s FY 2005 budget. They foresee economic calamity ahead as defense and tax cut-driven deficits push us toward an abyss of debt. They question the need for such a large budget in light of our victory in the Cold War. But what has been the pattern of defense spending over the past fifty years and what does it reveal?
Chart I below shows real defense spending since 1950 in both inflation-adjusted dollars and as a percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the broadest measure of our nation’s domestic output. The solid blue line represents defense outlays in inflation-adjusted dollars while the dotted green line represents defense outlays as a percent of GDP. Both data series clearly show the periods of post-World War II buildup: Korea, Vietnam, Reagan and the War on Terror; as well as periods of decline: post-Korea, post-Vietnam and Post-Cold War. Each series has a trend line (in black) bisecting it, which shows the average increase/decrease of the series over time.
Read More......
http://www.sftt.org/cgi-bin/csNews/csNews.cgi?database=DefenseWatch.db&command=viewone&op=t&id=385&rnd=110.25997883827421
Sempers,
Roger
:marine: