You Cannot Be Serious
Touting a plan to reduce federal government spending by nearly $39 billion for the remainder of fiscal year 2011, House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-KY) triumphantly claimed, "My committee went line-by-line through agency budgets this weekend to negotiate and craft deep but responsible reductions in virtually all areas of government." According to Rogers, "Our bill targets wasteful and duplicative spending, makes strides to rein in out-of-control federal bureaucracies, and will help bring our nation one step closer to eliminating our job-crushing level of debt."
To begin, President Obama’s original proposed budget (submitted in February 2010) was a whopping $3.8 trillion! So $39 billion represents about 1 percent. So while a sizeable portion of Bill Gates’ net worth (estimated at $56 billion and number two in the world), not much in terms of total federal spending. However, $2.1 trillion of federal spending is for mandatory programs (things like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and – now, in the age of "too big to fail" – TARP). So $39 billion is more like 2 percent of $1.7 trillion of discretionary spending (still not much).
So all the talk about "eliminating our job-crushing level of debt" is a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing.
But it gets worse. According to the Wall Street Journal: The main exception was the Defense Department, which wound up with a $5 billion increase from previous levels, leaving it with $513 billion (which does not include more than $150 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan).
In the words of John McEnroe (probably my all-time favorite tennis player): You cannot be serious!
The Defense Department accounts for nearly one-third of total discretionary spending. To believe that significant reductions in rampant federal spending can be made while leaving defense spending untouched is to believe in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy. The $39 billion in cuts to the rest of the federal government that Hal Rogers and other Republicans are crowing about is less than 10 percent of the defense budget. Despite going line-by-line through each department and agency, Rogers’ committee couldn’t find another $39 billion that the Defense Department could do without? Instead, adding $5 billion is their idea of reigning in an out-of-control federal bureaucracy?
As my 11-year old daughter says: Really?
According to Winslow Wheeler, director of the Straus Military Reform Project, "Budget reductions on the order of 10 percent per year for several years into the future can make us stronger, not weaker." Larry Korb (an assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration) and Laura Conley at the Center for American Progress outlined a series of options that would result in $85-$255 billion in defense spending reductions and recommended specific cuts of more than $100 billion. The Sustainable Defense Task Force identified nearly $1 trillion in Pentagon budget savings over ten years. And my former Cato Institute colleague, Chris Preble (along with Benjamin Friedman) found $1.2 trillion to trim over 10 years. So how is it that all these people (just to name a few) could find ways to reduce the defense budget, but Congressman Rogers and his ilk can’t?
The only plausible answer is that they’re disingenuous about reducing federal government spending. Leaving aside the difficult issue of trying to reduce so-called entitlement spending (a little more than half the federal budget), the only way to make a dent in the rest of federal spending is to include paring down the Defense Department since it comprises the bulk of discretionary spending. Otherwise, you cannot be serious.
Read more by Charles V. Peña
- Another Reason Not to Go to War So Often – January 19th, 2012
- The Myth of Military Budget Cuts – January 8th, 2012
- Keystone Cops Logic – January 5th, 2012
- Doomsday Defense Cuts? – August 11th, 2011
- Gates’ NATO Gripes Ignore Biggest Failing – July 28th, 2011
Zoin Murderers
April 15th, 2011 at 3:31 am
Ancient Rome, 1980's Soviet Union, 2011 USA, bankrupted Empires that overspent on the military.
Bruce Richardson
April 15th, 2011 at 5:36 am
The "Military, Industrial Complex", Eisenhower knew of what he spoke. One trillion dollars thus far in Afghanistan, yet what is the justification for our war against this tiny and poor country? The country and or the people had no role in 9/11, and we now know that the US advised Pakistan that they would attack Afghanistan before mid-October of 2001. The problem with this is they stated this at a conference in Berlin in July of 2001, months prior to 9/11. Obam claims that 9/11 was "planned in Afghanistan." Yet anyone with a computer and a brain can see the plethora of evidence which shows it was conceived in Germany and Florida. Retired intelligence personnel have stated that the problems of "planning such a complex operation from a cave in the mountains of Afghanistan would be insurmounntable."
The military accounts for a third of discretionary spending. Let's get real. Cutting funding for Grandmas library membership wont cut it!
smithy100
April 15th, 2011 at 7:12 am
(probably my all-time favorite tennis player):
If you do not know who your all time favorite tennis player is how can we give any crediblity to anything you write?
loucypher
April 15th, 2011 at 8:53 am
"Obam claims that 9/11 was "planned in Afghanistan." Yet anyone with a computer and a brain can see the plethora of evidence which shows it was conceived in Germany and Florida."
Germany? Florida? Try Washington DC and Tel Aviv. That's what the evidence shows.
eric siverson
April 16th, 2011 at 10:19 am
No it was first planned in Bosnia , as 7 of the 21 highjackers also fought in Yugoslavia on the same side we supported by humanitian bombing .
Red Libertarian
April 18th, 2011 at 2:37 pm
The key duties of the federal government (as opposed to the states) are to negotiate on behalf of the states with other nations; to defend the collective states; provide a common supreme law; and arbitrate disputes between the states.
Its duty is not to micromanage the way cities in state localities grow, nor to micromanage what type of energy citizens power their homes with, nor to micromanage how people obtain transportation from one place to another within the U.S.; it is not to provide a universal one-size-fits-all education, not to subsidize some farmers over others, not to prop up self-sustainable unions, and not to provide health care.
Because those are all things that can be done more easily and cheaply by the private sector or the States themselves. Nothing stops a state from instituting its own universal healthcare–like MA's Romneycare–or having its own crop subsidies, or managing its own cities, or funding its own education system, etc, etc… the Federal government is there to do what the States /can't/ do on their own.
To "provide for the common defense" is one such thing. It is fine to debate the role and scope of the military–do we need troops garrisoned in Europe, in South Korea, etc? Do we need so many soldiers, planes, and war craft? Should we be deployed in this country or that country when there is no clear American interest at stake? These are legitimate questions, but at the same time, the military is the last thing the government should resort to cutting, when things like the Department of Energy, Agriculture, Transportation, Education, Labor, HUD, and HHS can be effectively abolished, with their necessary duties transferred to the states or the private sector.
Doing so will mean competition and specialization. Maybe New England will attract the most young people or parents with young children by having the best public education system and free healthcare for minors… while the Midwest attracts farmers by having the best farm subsidies, the Gulf states/Alaska attract energy companies by having the best energy subsidies, California attracts poor migrant workers by having the best welfare… etc. That way middle aged — old people who don't need an education don't have to subsidize it, people who don't like fossil fuels don't have to subsidize their extraction from the Earth, people in the bible belt who don't like abortions don't have to subsidize them, etc… States aren't incompetent. If that want to attract a certain type of person or business to them, they'll find a way. And because I'm sure more than one state will want to attract the same type of person/business… they will compete. Which leads to greater and greater efficiency.
The reason I have a problem with enacting major cuts to the military at this point is because a) reforming the responsibilities of the federal departments as I have just outlined should happen first, and b) since Obama's election, the military /has/ been cut many times. Over fifty developmental technologies have been scrapped, technologies meant to replace military hardware 3, 4, even 5 decades old. As I'm sure anyone on "antiwar.com" is aware, these upgrades are not cheap, and by ending these programs as they are near completion not only means America will be advancing into a new military age with out-dated equipment (putting our soldiers and innocent civilians alike at risk) but it also flushes the dozens of billions of dollars already spent on these programs down the drain.
camus10
April 19th, 2011 at 5:11 pm
Comments on this welcome
budget cut priorities questioned, why there is no control of corporate welfare
spending on military equipment Vs human intelligence – smart independent policy thinktanks -language specialists – learning from lost military campaigns – prosecuting defense-security misuse.
ending crony capitalism the major source of inefficiency, the best connected get no-bid contracts
investing in mass transit and energy alternatives like Thorium fission reactors Vs mounting oil-coal dependence
defund oil – nuclear subsidies. Ending big oil drilling royalties Vs govt largesse