Posted by
On the Right on Sunday, November 02, 2008 2:54:16 AM
The Unbearable Lightness of Barney
One reason nobody takes Democrats seriously on matters of national
security are statements like those of Representative Barney Frank
(D-Mass.) to the effect that he wants to cut the Defense budget by a
mind-numbing 25 percent in order to reduce the deficit and to pay for
programs he and his Democratic colleagues hold near and dear to their
hearts. Aside for the questionable wisdom of cutting the defense budget
at all when more than 200,000 American troops are deployed in combat
zones around the world, Frank's proposal suggests that the man, for all
his years in Congress dealing with budgetary matters, simply does not
understand the military or how the country pays for it. Because any
halfway informed person, hearing Frank's proposal, would realize that
it is not physically or fiscally possible to do what he wants.
"Why?" one might ask. After all, we will spend some $650 billion on
the Department of Defense next year. Surely, it should be possible to
eliminate a measly $162 billion, just by cutting "waste, fraud and
mismanagement." In fact, the Defense Department is actually quite well
managed as compared to some of Barney Frank's more favored government
bureaucracies, like the Department of Housing and Urban Development, or
the Department of Health and Human Services. If all the inefficiency
and corruption were squeezed out of the Defense Department, I doubt
that one could save more than $20-30 billion. So when Frank calls for
cuts, he means real cuts. So let's look at how that would have to be done.
That leaves just Procurement and R&D, which together account for
about 36 percent of the DoD budget. To meet Frank's goal, we would have
to cut spending in both categories by half. This means that most of the
new weapon systems now in production could not be acquired in the
numbers needed to replace the aging systems (most of our inventory was
purchased during the Reagan era) in the numbers necessary to maintain
front line strength. Many programs would have to be terminated, others
would have to be cut back or "stretched out," leading, paradoxically,
to higher costs in future years (because the unit cost of the items we
do buy will be higher, and because the older systems we need to keep
longer will become more expensive to maintain and operate).
Cuts in R&D amount to eating our technological seed corn. In an
era of rapid technological change, a failure to invest today could lead
to technical inferiority a decade or more from now. Worse, the U.S.
will not be able to develop the kinds of systems it will need to fight
the asymmetrical enemies we are most likely to face. For better or
worse, our soldiers will have to prepare to fight the last war because
they will be armed with the last war's weapons.
This is only a cursory analysis of the budget at its most
superficial level, but it is enough to reveal that Barney Frank's
desire to cut defense by 25 percent is either fantasy or lunacy--or a
cynical attempt to play to the pacifist wing of his own party while
distracting attention from his own culpability for the current
financial crisis. In any case, Frank is very much alone in his desire
to make such deep cuts in defense (though Obama makes noises of this
sort from time to time, he is quick to backtrack). In fact, there is an
emerging consensus that the U.S. must maintain its defense spending at
close to its present levels for the foreseeable future.
The real threat to the defense budget comes from what has been
called "entitlement squeeze"; i.e., the growth of "entitlement
programs" such as Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and the like,
which go up every year in response to inflation and new government
mandates, without Congress even having to appropriate the money--it's
just taken off the top, automatically. That leaves less and less room
for "discretionary' funding--money which Congress has to appropriate
and authorize every year. Defense constitutes the single largest pile
of discretionary funds, and is also the one with the least domestic
support, since its benefits are not visible (unless there is a war).
Congressmen and senators would much rather spend money on programs that
directly benefit their constituents, since these are most likely to be
rewarded with votes on election day. But given the present growth of
entitlement programs, the only way to do this without either increasing
the federal deficit or passing unpopular tax increases (the sponge that
is the "super rich" has just about been squeezed dry) is to take money
from one pile of discretionary money and move it to more popular ones.
Defense is the only significant discretionary funding that can be
raided in this manner. Bill Clinton did it during his administration
which is why we managed to get increases in domestic spending and
a budget surplus. All it cost was a military force that was undermanned
and undercapitalized when we needed to go to war. But, hey, that was a
calculated risk, one which Clinton seemed to have won--9/11 wasn't on
his watch, after all.
So when Barney Frank talks about a 25 percent cut in defense
spending, know (a) that it cannot be done; and (b) if anyone tries, the
result will be disastrous. Playing games with the defense budget will
not solve our fiscal problems--but it does distract from the real, and
unpopular solution, which is serious entitlement reform.