Defense Budget

Now that the primary election is over, it is incredible how few voters and politicians failed to make any connection between the $700 billion we spend every year on defense and the government deficits and financial crisis the U.S. is facing. The Bush administration added nearly $5 trillion in costs for wars which directly went into unpaid U.S. debt. Since 2001, military spending has doubled, and even then it was already more than any other country's. Now it is more than the rest of the world combined.

The defining political issue of 2012 won't be the government's size. It will be who government is for. Americans have never much liked government. After all, the nation was conceived in a revolution against government. But the surge of cynicism engulfing America isn't about how big government has become. It's a growing perception that our government is no longer working for average people. It's for big business, Wall Street and the very rich. In a recent Pew Foundation poll, 77 percent of respondents said too much power is in the hands of a few rich people and corporations.

Today, President Obama will release his budget request, asking more for defense than any other president -- a whopping $708 billion for the Department of Defense in fiscal 2011. Also today, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates will release a document known inside Washington as the QDR -- the quadrennial defense review, a four-year snapshot of our security plans. The last QDR was done under Donald Rumsfeld, with George W. Bush as president, but be prepared to wonder if Mr. Bush is still president.

Whether the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction - the so-called supercommittee - reaches a deal to reduce the federal deficit by at least $1.2 trillion or stalemates on Nov. 23, Democrats appear intent on handicapping the national economy with higher taxes and imperiling national security by cutting defense. Those are the wrong places to solve the nation's budget woes. In 2007, just prior to the financial crisis and when Democrats took control of Congress, the deficit was a manageable $161 billion.

Just how the Persian Gulf war tangles up a defense budget predicated on the end of the Cold War is well illustrated by the newest Washington debate over the Strategic Defense Initiative and the B-2 Stealth bomber.To hear Defense Secretary Dick Cheney tell it, you would think the success of Patriot missiles in shooting down Iraqi Scud rockets is evidence the nation should go ahead with Ronald Reagan's "Star Wars" project for combating a massive Soviet intercontinental missile strike. You would think, too, the effectiveness of F-117 Stealth fighter-bombers in hitting Iraqi targets unseen by enemy radar makes a case for the B-2.Not everyone agrees.

Whether the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction - the so-called supercommittee - reaches a deal to reduce the federal deficit by at least $1.2 trillion or stalemates on Nov. 23, Democrats appear intent on handicapping the national economy with higher taxes and imperiling national security by cutting defense. Those are the wrong places to solve the nation's budget woes. In 2007, just prior to the financial crisis and when Democrats took control of Congress, the deficit was a manageable $161 billion.

I would like to respond to Roz Ellis ("Cut military spending, not entitlements," Readers Respond, July 30). Our humongous military outlay is never on the table because it is not humongous. The cost of national defense accounted for approximately 19 percent of the federal 2009 budget. In contrast, the cost of Social Security, Medicare and other social programs accounted for approximately 55 percent of the budget. It may be prudent to scrap old ships and cut the defense budget, but these things will not solve our financial problems.

WASHINGTON -- Here's a tricky question for the serious budget-wonks:Where in the federal budget would you find spending for:* Breast-cancer research.* Environmental cleanup efforts.* Drug-enforcement programs.* Financing for public schools.* Aid to the Soviet Union.* Jobs for workers in Connecticut.* Rifle practice for neighborhood teens.* Government support for the 1996 Olympics.* Memorial Day and July 4th concerts?If you're busily thumbing through the spending programs for all 149 federal departments and agencies, let us save you the trouble: Look under "Department of Defense, Military."

SAN DIEGO -- Even war on the horizon cannot stop the "de-Reaganizing" of the U.S. defense budget as it continues to recede from the hefty levels of the early and mid-1980s, defense electronics officials say.By the year 2000, defense spending will decline by one-third and dip even below pre-World War II levels in terms of share of the gross national product, the Electronic Industries Association said yesterday in an annual 10-year market forecast of the...

Defense Secretary Robert Gates was right to call out our European allies for their lack of commitment to NATO and their over dependence on the defense forces of the USA ("Gates hits NATO allies hard," June 11). Anyone who has traveled to Western Europe can only marvel at the standard of living enjoyed by the majority their citizens. Germany is an interesting case in that this is a country that suffered greatly economically as a result of two world wars but with the help of outsiders has become an economic powerhouse.

I would like to respond to Roz Ellis ("Cut military spending, not entitlements," Readers Respond, July 30). Our humongous military outlay is never on the table because it is not humongous. The cost of national defense accounted for approximately 19 percent of the federal 2009 budget. In contrast, the cost of Social Security, Medicare and other social programs accounted for approximately 55 percent of the budget. It may be prudent to scrap old ships and cut the defense budget, but these things will not solve our financial problems.

CIA Director Leon Panetta becomes secretary of defense Thursday, taking over Washington's largest and most powerful bureaucracy with a budget that amounts to nearly 60 percent of discretionary federal spending. He will be stepping into the shoes of the most influential member of the Obama administration, Robert M. Gates, who has been canonized for his efforts over the past five years. For the past two months, Secretary of Defense Gates has been on a farewell tour of U.S. think tanks, universities and military academies, advocating policies that will make Mr. Panetta's job extremely difficult.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates was right to call out our European allies for their lack of commitment to NATO and their over dependence on the defense forces of the USA ("Gates hits NATO allies hard," June 11). Anyone who has traveled to Western Europe can only marvel at the standard of living enjoyed by the majority their citizens. Germany is an interesting case in that this is a country that suffered greatly economically as a result of two world wars but with the help of outsiders has become an economic powerhouse.

The American defense community stands at a crossroads. The need to trim the defense budget, as Defense Secretary Robert Gates recently put it, is a "matter of simple arithmetic and political reality. " Meanwhile, this year's defense authorization bill, passed by the House late last month, contains a provision that allows work to continue on the second engine for the F-35 fighter. The makers of that engine, GE and Rolls Royce, have agreed to self-fund the project. They're betting that they can round up support in Congress to bring it back to life — despite the fact that the Pentagon has previously issued a stop-work order on the project, which it says is "a waste of taxpayer money.

I just can't take this anymore. I am sick of the Democrats (tax the rich) and Republicans (cut programs but not defense) and their endless back and forth about who is to blame for the deficit. Guess what gang? Both of you are. A perfect example of this is the commentary on June 7 titled "Tax cuts for the rich have made us poorer" by Rion Dennis and Roger Rath. All they do is complain about the Bush tax cuts. Could we slightly increase the tax rates for the very wealthy? Yes. But they fail to address the biggest problem in this country.

Rep. David Dreier, one of the newly empowered Republicans in the House of Representatives, said Wednesday, "It's often been said that we don't have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem. " Shortly thereafter, he and his colleagues took steps to make sure we will have both. Despite all their talk about fiscal responsibility, the Republicans who took over the House of Representatives this week have opened the door to budget changes that will have a much more lasting impact on the federal deficit than the bailouts or stimulus measures they derided during the last two years.

It has been widely understood that the Clinton administration planned to pay for new social programs mainly by cuts in defense spending. It is, therefore, no surprise that the budget proposed by Secretary of Defense Les Aspin features deep cuts and proposes a level of spending that is more than $128 billion below the levels proposed by the Bush administration. What was not understood was that the Clinton/Aspin budget would propose to use those reduced dollars to pay for new activities not previously funded by the Department of Defense.

Washington. -- Six years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Congress and the executive branch continue to approach defense spending as if it were Cold War business as usual. In 1996, the U.S. will spend about as much on defense as it did during the mid 1970s.Far from pursuing a ''peace dividend,'' neither congressional nor recent presidential proposals to balance the budget envision substantial reductions in U.S. military spending below average Cold War levels.A bolder vision of our defense capabilities and needs is required.

Now that the primary election is over, it is incredible how few voters and politicians failed to make any connection between the $700 billion we spend every year on defense and the government deficits and financial crisis the U.S. is facing. The Bush administration added nearly $5 trillion in costs for wars which directly went into unpaid U.S. debt. Since 2001, military spending has doubled, and even then it was already more than any other country's. Now it is more than the rest of the world combined.

Today, President Obama will release his budget request, asking more for defense than any other president -- a whopping $708 billion for the Department of Defense in fiscal 2011. Also today, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates will release a document known inside Washington as the QDR -- the quadrennial defense review, a four-year snapshot of our security plans. The last QDR was done under Donald Rumsfeld, with George W. Bush as president, but be prepared to wonder if Mr. Bush is still president.