Should Congress Repeal the Scheduled Cuts to Defense Spending? >
Given Our Big Debt and Weak Enemies, We Need Some Cuts
The Pentagon should cut military spending, but sequestration is not the answer
April 3, 2012
About Benjamin H. Friedman:
Benjamin H. Friedman is a research fellow in defense and homeland security studies at the Cato Institute, and co-editor of two books, including Terrorizing Ourselves: Why U.S. Counterterrorism Policy Is Failing and How to Fix It , published in 2010.
The military budget should be substantially cut, but sequestration isn't the way to do it. Congress should pass legislation to let the Pentagon avoid sequester, but only if the Pentagon offers a new defense plan that saves as much in a more sensible way.
The Budget Control Act told a joint congressional committee to forge a plan to reduce the deficit by $1.2 trillion. To encourage compromise, the law offered an alternative unpalatable to all: the taking—sequestration—of that amount over nine years, with half coming from the military. To maximize pain, the law applies sequestration equally to all non-exempt agency accounts, including the Pentagon's. The president can exclude only personnel costs, so that salaries are fully paid.
[Check out our collection of political cartoons on defense spending.]
The super committee's failure compels the president to take about $54 billion (the Pentagon's annualized share adjusted for lowered interest payments) from the Pentagon next January, whatever its size. From 2014-2021, the law imposes spending caps for each discretionary spending category, including defense, and sequesters any excess.
The problem with sequestration is not size but method. According to the Congressional Budget Office, sequestration would reduce planned non-war Pentagon spending from $5.3 trillion to $4.8 trillion from 2013 to 2021. That's less than a 10 percent cut from a budget that grew by almost 50 percent, adjusting for inflation, in the last decade. The 2021 Pentagon budget would have about the same purchasing power as the non-war 2006 Pentagon, leaving it bigger than at the height of the Cold War. Given our big debt and weak enemies, such cuts are too small.
[Read Why the Paul Ryan Budget Won’t Fly.]
The best way to cut military spending is to reduce missions and then cut force structure and manpower. The smaller force should need fewer vehicles, less administration, and less real estate. But those savings take time. They also require choices among accounts, which the law prevents in 2013.
Additional Pentagon cuts should be part of any deal undoing sequestration. Congress should change the law so that caps force the Pentagon to save the same total over the same period, only more gradually. That requires the Pentagon to reduce its ambitions. It should be working on that plan today.
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- Other Arguments
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#1434169
Yes — Cuts would further weaken our standing as a global power
MACKENZIE EAGLEN, Resident Fellow at the Marilyn Ware Center for Security Studies at the American Enterprise Institute
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#2123136
Yes — These additional cuts would be too deep and too arbitrary
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Member of the United States House of Representatives
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#458114
Yes — A more gradual and flexible process is far better than the sudden, inflexible cuts built into sequestration
TRAVIS SHARP, Bacevich Fellow at the Center for a New American Security
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#573159
Yes — Yes, crippling debt hurts national security too, but military weakness is not the way out
BRIAN DARLING, Senior Fellow for Government Studies at the Heritage Foundation
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#6139354
No — A budget of $472 billion is more than sufficient to protect our national security
LAWRENCE J. KORB, Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress
