Defense Department foie gras
How Mr. Romney Would Force-Feed the Pentagon
By CAROL GIACOMO, NYT
Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are portraying themselves as lionhearted budget-cutters, ready to slice out profligate spending in all sorts of government programs and services and lead America to lower taxes and lower deficits. Many experts say their numbers don’t add up, even if they were to impose all the cuts they want.
Yet none of that philosophy seems to apply to the defense budget — which accounts for roughly half of all federal discretionary spending.
Instead of proposing sensible and necessary reductions, they would throw more money at a Pentagon that has had a blank check for more than a decade. The base budget for 2013 — not including war-related costs — is projected at $525 billion, up roughly 34 percent from 2001. By 2022, Mr. Romney’s plan would increase annual spending to $986 billion, according to an analysis by Travis Sharp of the Center for a New American Security.
The centerpiece of Mr. Romney’s proposal is a promise to spend at least 4 percent of gross domestic product on military personnel, procurement, operations and maintenance, and research and development. That would add as much as $2.3 trillion to the defense budget over 10 years from projected 2013 spending levels, according to Mr. Sharp’s analysis.
And yet for all these extra trillions, there’s no sense that this money would produce a more effective security strategy. Linking a budget to the G.D.P. is a bizarre way of addressing defense needs — which rationally should be based on a disciplined analysis of threats and the nation’s tolerance of risk. This certainly won’t provide any incentive for reform in a Pentagon that spends with more waste and less economic bang for the buck than other federal departments. Some conservatives have advocated the G.D.P. metric, saying it would ensure military strength by guaranteeing increased defense spending as the nation’s wealth rises. But others — like the anti-tax guru Grover Norquist — have urged Republicans to lead in reducing the military budget.
(More here.)
Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are portraying themselves as lionhearted budget-cutters, ready to slice out profligate spending in all sorts of government programs and services and lead America to lower taxes and lower deficits. Many experts say their numbers don’t add up, even if they were to impose all the cuts they want.
Yet none of that philosophy seems to apply to the defense budget — which accounts for roughly half of all federal discretionary spending.
Instead of proposing sensible and necessary reductions, they would throw more money at a Pentagon that has had a blank check for more than a decade. The base budget for 2013 — not including war-related costs — is projected at $525 billion, up roughly 34 percent from 2001. By 2022, Mr. Romney’s plan would increase annual spending to $986 billion, according to an analysis by Travis Sharp of the Center for a New American Security.
The centerpiece of Mr. Romney’s proposal is a promise to spend at least 4 percent of gross domestic product on military personnel, procurement, operations and maintenance, and research and development. That would add as much as $2.3 trillion to the defense budget over 10 years from projected 2013 spending levels, according to Mr. Sharp’s analysis.
And yet for all these extra trillions, there’s no sense that this money would produce a more effective security strategy. Linking a budget to the G.D.P. is a bizarre way of addressing defense needs — which rationally should be based on a disciplined analysis of threats and the nation’s tolerance of risk. This certainly won’t provide any incentive for reform in a Pentagon that spends with more waste and less economic bang for the buck than other federal departments. Some conservatives have advocated the G.D.P. metric, saying it would ensure military strength by guaranteeing increased defense spending as the nation’s wealth rises. But others — like the anti-tax guru Grover Norquist — have urged Republicans to lead in reducing the military budget.
(More here.)
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