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Show Hinckley Journal of Politics Spring 2000 pounced on Congress for forcing funding on the military that they "did not ask for." They did, of course, ask for this spending privately, and those requests have become desperate pleas. Congressional efforts were frantic attempts to bend the rails back to parallel. Many were too busy bending to notice that the track was no longer heading up the mountain. The administration's new idea for helping to deal with the divergence is a retreat to what has always been a bad idea, Win-Hold-Win (known, discreetly, in Pentagon circles as "Win-Hold-Oops"). The Solution We are faced with a choice: Climb the mountain, or give up. Being genuinely prepared to fight two major wars is the right strategy for the United States, and the only viable choice for the only global superpower. As we have seen, world hot spots may require resources over and above those needed even for two MRC's. Recent operations in Kosovo (not an MRC) required the attention of nearly 75 percent of the entire Air Force. The new investment necessary to properly resource this strategy must be a national priority. During Congressional hearings this year, each of the military service chiefs finally confessed to a serious shortfall in funding, $23 billion this year alone. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff testified to a shortfall of over $150 billion in the next 6 years. Congress asked them, on the spot, to put it in writing. Even by Washington standards, $23 billion is a lot of money. Where can we hope to find it? The clues can be found in the historical tables of the President's budget for the year 2000. Since 1962, the percentage of government funds actually under the control of Congress, so-called discretionary funds, has shriveled from 67.5 percent to only 33.7 percent. The rest of the revenue is spent in non-discretionary, or entitlement, accounts that include interest on the debt, Social Security, Medicare and a host of other programs. The percentage of total outlays spent on national defense has declined over the same period from 49.2 percent to just 16.1 percent. National defense, and all other discretionary spending, is being steadily squeezed out by exploding non-discretionary, entitlement spending. Looking at national defense spending as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) also proves instructive. In 1962, national defense accounted for 9.3 percent of GDP. Today, that figure is 3.2 percent and forecast to drop to 2.9 percent by 2001, the lowest level since before Pearl Harbor. Even during the "hollow force" days of the Carter administration, Americans invested 4.7 percent of GDP in defense. Of course, in the 1970's, the U.S. faced the Soviet Bloc in the Cold War. I agree that we should have reduced, and did reduce our military force from the Cold War high. Today's military is about 40 percent smaller than it was at the height of the Cold War when America spent 6.1 percent of GDP. A spending level commensurate with that 40 percent reduction, or approximately 3.7 percent of GDP, would be a good starting point. This half a percent increase over the current level of 3.2 percent of GDP would add $43 billion dollars for defense investment - enough to cover all of the Joint Chiefs'unfunded requirements and substantially improve military pay, healthcare and quality of life. This new investment should focus on today's readiness first and tomorrow's preparedness second. As anyone knows, the only way out of a hole is to first stop digging. Pay raises targeted at our enlisted ranks to end reliance on food stamps and close the military-civilian pay gap, restoration of our commitment to quality and accessible health care for military families and retirees, and reinvestment in safe and adequate military housing will send an unmistakable message of support to the men and women who sacrifice so much in our nation's uniform. Likewise, replenishment of the accounts that pay for spare parts, maintenance, training and flying hours must be a top priority. No amount of patriotism will keep a pilot in uniform if his plane never leaves the ground. Finally, recapitalization of aging equipment and investment in new technology is the prescription for ensuring American security. We should not ask our pilots to fly their father's airplane and our Marines to drive their grandfather's truck. Current Air Force plans will fly the B-52 bomber for 90 years, while the Army still drives trucks driven in Vietnam. Even as replacements for these backbone systems must be fielded, new threats will require new capabilities. Ballistic-missile defense, protection against the threat of chemical or biological warfare, and information security are just a few of the challenges that will face us in the coming years. Arresting the entitlement explosion by paying off the debt to save interest payments, and reforming the Social Security and government health care systems, would free the billions of dollars needed to fully fund this readiness and modernization effort. In 1999, interest payments on the national debt consumed nearly 15 percent of all federal spending. In 1998 we actually spent more on debt servicing than on the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps combined! Similarly, Social Security, Medicare and other entitlement spending has ballooned from 26 percent of federal spending in 1962 to over 55 percent today. Conclusion The divergence of national strategy and the resources dedicated to achieving those goals presents a worsening danger for America and values we hold dear. Allowing the squeezed, discretionary budget to drive the future direction of military force structure is a grave mistake. Just as the little engine from the story was not free to choose the destination or the steepness of the track, the only responsible policy is to set national defense spending levels predicated on the threat we face. The threats we face today, while different in many ways from those we faced during the Cold War, are no less dan- as |