Det danske Fredsakademi
Kronologi over fredssagen og international politik 7. August 2011 / Timeline August 7, 2011
Version 3.56. August 2011, 8. August 2011
08/07/2011
Enormous Cuts in Military Spending? Read the Fine Print
By Medea Benjamin
In this age of austerity, all the politicians are talking about the
need for spending cuts. But when it comes to shared burdens and
slashed budgets, don't expect the Pentagon to start holding bake
sales, despite what you may have heard about reductions to its
obscenely bloated funding.
Citing the U.S. government's $14.3 trillion debt, lawmakers from
both parties have seized the moment to try and attain
long-hoped-for cuts to Social Security and Medicare. But the recent
deal does seem to include some good news for lovers of peace: the
push for reductions would encompass the war-making part of the
state. Indeed, according to a "fact sheet" released by the White
House on the bipartisan compromise, the recent deal to raise the
national debt ceiling "puts us on track to cut $350 billion from
the defense budget over 10 years."
Popular liberal pundits, such as The Washington Post's Eugene
Robinson and Ezra Klein reacted by calling the supposed defense
cuts "gigantic" and "unprecedented." The White House says they're
the first spending reductions since the 1990s.
But don't start cheering yet. As with any other major bipartisan
initiative in Washington -- the Iraq war and the Wall Street
bailouts come to mind -- there's ample reason to be skeptical.
First, the cuts for 2012 are virtually nothing. Security spending
-- which includes the Pentagon, State Department, Homeland
Security, part of Veterans Affairs and intelligence spending --
will be capped at $684 billion in 2012, a decline of merely $5
billion (less than 1 percent) from this year.
Yes, there are potentially far more drastic cuts down the road. In
addition to the first $1 trillion in cuts over the next decade, a
bipartisan Congressional committee must come up with an additional
$1.5 trillion cuts by November -- or trigger an automatic
across-the-board reduction of $1.2 trillion starting in 2013, half
of which would be expected to come from military spending.
However, expect this threat of deep military cuts -- if cutting
defense by 3 percent a year can be called "deep" when it has grown
at a rate of 9 percent over the last decade -- to be used as a
bargaining chip by Democrats to extract concessions on tax
increases from Republicans; don't hold your breath expecting them
to actually materialize. And with House Republicans already
pledging to "fight on behalf of our Armed Forces," by which they
mean the military-industrial complex, don't expect Democrats to put
up much of a fight. Even were Barack Obama so inclined,
the idea that he will expend political capital on cutting military
spending even as he expands the war on terror in Libya, Yemen and
Somalia is doubtful, especially with an election looming.
But let's put aside cynicism and accept the Obama administration at
its word. Let's assume the White House and Congress agree to cut
military spending by $350 billion a year over 10 years. While the
numbers may sound impressive out of context, that's like draining
an Olympic-sized pool with a glass from your kitchen: you're going
to be at it for a while. The military budget has ballooned so much
over the last decade that even if it was cut in half tomorrow the
U.S. would still spend more than it did in 2001.
Indeed, the Obama administration's proposed military budget for
2012 -- the baseline from which future cuts are projected -- is at
its "highest level since World War II," according to the
non-partisan Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments,
"surpassing the Cold War peak" set by Ronald Reagan and a
Democratic House of Representatives in 1985. Even if, instead of
over a decade, the whole, entirely-subject-to-change $350 billion
was cut from the defense budget in one fiscal year alone, the U.S.
would still lead the globe in military spending, devoting twice as
much to guns and bombs as its closest and much more populous rival,
China. And that's without factoring in the cost of any new
wars.
Of course, official budget numbers don't tell the whole story.
Factoring in interest payments for past military expenditures,
spending on veterans' care and other defense-related items not
included in the Pentagon budget, economist Robert Higgs estimates
the yearly grand total spent on the military is $1 trillion or
more, with over half of the federal income tax going to the
military. And that massive national debt that's being used to
justify cuts in social s pending? Nothing has contributed to it
more than the dramatic rise in military spending over the last
decade, a factoid you might have missed if you get your news from a
television.
The tragic irony is that debt caused in large part by foreign
military adventures is being used to further a class war here at
home, even as the bloodshed continues in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya
and beyond. Too bad that, rather than denounce this morally and
fiscally damaging addiction to militarism, politicians prefer to
orchestrate the decline of the American empire from within.
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