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Pentagon Budgets and Fuzzy Math
By the tone of some of the media coverage, you might have thought Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced a plan to slash military spending yesterday. On the front page of USA Today (1/27/12), under the headline "Panetta Backs Far Leaner Military," readers learn in the first paragraph:
U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta briefs the media at the Pentagon Briefing Room in Washington January 26, 2012.(REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque)
The Pentagon's new plan to cut Defense spending means a reduction of 100,000 troops, the retiring of ships and planes and closing of bases--moves that the Defense secretary said would not compromise security.
The piece quotes critics of the cuts like Sen. Joe Lieberman and an analyst at the right-wing American Enterprise Institute. And the article talks about the most commonly cited figure of $487 billion in cuts over 10 years. As economist Dean Baker writes about such coverage--"Military Budget Cuts: Denominator Please"--there is no way people can assess the significance of what sounds like a lot of money if they don't know how much the Pentagon is planning to spend over the same 1o-year period--roughly $8 trillion.
The PBS NewsHour did little to clarify the issue. The broadcast began with Jeffrey Brown announcing, "The Pentagon today outlined almost half a trillion dollars in budget cuts that would shrink the size of the U.S. military by trimming ground forces, retiring ships and planes, and delaying some new weapons." PBS aired clips from Republicans Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich denouncing the budget cuts, and then interviewed a Pentagon official.
Even coverage of the Pentagon's new "austerity" that managed to include some helpful context didn't make things very clear. "The Pentagon took the first major step toward shrinking its budget after a decade of war" was how a New York Times story by Elisabeth Bumiller (1/27/12) begins. In the fourth paragraph, readers found this:
Even though the Defense Department has been called on to find $259 billion in cuts in the next five years--and $487 billion over the decade--its base budget (not counting the costs of Afghanistan or other wars) will rise to $567 billion by 2017. But when adjusted for inflation, the increases are small enough that they will amount to a slight cut of 1.6 percent of the Pentagon's base budget over the next five years.
So the "first major step" in cutting the military budget... isn't really a cut?
A Washington Post piece by Craig Whitlock (1/27/12) had a more accurate lead--"The Pentagon budget will shrink slightly next year"-- but later tries to make a 1 percent cut sound more significant: "While the difference may sound small, it represents a new era of austerity for the Defense Department."
To make matters even more confusing, the Post points out later that
Although the defense budget will decline next year, to $525 billion from this year's $531 billion, under Obama's current projections it will inch upward in constant dollars between 1 percent and 2 percent annually thereafter.
Kudos to Nancy Yousef of McClatchy for writing a piece (1/26/12) that took a different tack. Under the headline "Defense Budget Plan Doesn't Cut as Deeply as Pentagon Says," Yousef led with this:
Pentagon officials on Thursday announced the outlines of what they called a pared-down defense budget, but their request would increase baseline spending beyond the projected end of the war in Afghanistan, even as they plan to reduce ground forces.
To Yousef, the Pentagon was " employing a definition of the term 'reduction' that may be popular in Washington but is unconventional anywhere else."
And activist/writer David Swanson pointed out that the first question at Panetta's briefing got right at this question of whether the cuts are really cut. From the transcript:
Mr. Secretary, you talked a little bit on this, but over the next 10 years, do you see any other year than this year where the actual spending will go down from year to year? And just to the American public more broadly, how do you sort of explain what appears to be contradictory, as you talk about, repeatedly, this $500 billion in cuts in a Defense Department budget that is actually going to be increasing over time?
Panetta's answer:
Yeah, I think the simplest way to say this is that under the budget that was submitted in the past, we had a projected growth level for the Defense budget. And that growth would've provided for almost $500 billion in growth. And we had obviously dedicated that to a number of plans and projects that we would have. That's gotta be cut, and that's a real cut in terms of what our projected growth would be.
See the new release from the Institute for Public Accuracy for more of the context largely missing from the Pentagon budget coverage.
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10 Comments so far
Show AllThe Pentagon isn't very good at winning wars. In 2001 it couldn't even defend New York and itself from a bunch of box cutter wielding fanatics.
It's no good at helping veterans, many of whom have become part of America's growing homeless population, and many of whom suffer from serious problems due to their war service.
It's no good at reducing the number of suicides among active duty service members.
But the Pentagon is very good at extracting incredible sums of money from the American people, even when its war "needs" are declining.
But the Pentagon is very good at bamboozling the American people and their leaders, including Obama, into believing the armed forces are the most admirable part of American society, full of idealistic commitment to the Nation, above petty politics, united and focused on The Mission as the rest of America is obviously not.
And the Pentagon is very good at maintaining a huge planned economy within the much touted "free market" that is supposedly the hallmark of American freedom and prosperity. Within this planned economy former generals morph into corporate executives and "consultants"; lower ranking veterans morph into "security personnel" at home or abroad, and "defense" corporations morph into welfare recipients.
Militarism is inherently opposed to democracy, and if allowed to flourish, subverts democracy and the freedoms it requires. History has shown time and again, from ancient times when generals overthrew the Roman Republic and the Praetorian Guard took bribes to acclaim emperors; to the long list of modern military coups -- Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Egypt, Algeria, Ghana, Burma, Pakistan, and Greece are just a few -- that militarism is the death of democracy.
In the US, the heavy weight of military spending adds to the deficit and thereby offers an opportunity to reactionaries who want to abolish the social gains made by working people in the New Deal and afterwards The widespread infatuation with the military delegitimizes democracy and presents a contrasting model of collective action -- based on hierarchy, obedience, lack of transparency, and violence as a ready solution to all problems.
Resistance to militarism is a duty of all those who value democracy and want it to flourish. The most honorable form of such resistance is that offered by the troops themselves. Soldiers like Bradley Manning, the war resisters who left the military rather than fight in Iraq, are the real American heroes of the past decade. In supporting them, we uphold democracy and decency. In honoring them, we honor what is best in America.
Please support Bradley Manning, please support the war resisters in Canada.
Visit resisters.ca for more information and to offer your support.
What's sad is that, when asked which institutions they trust the most, Americans choose the military overwhelmingly, rates of approval exceeding education. They love their military and choose to ignore the waste and incompetence obvious to unbiased observers.
I see the words Pentagon Budgets and Math....and all I can think of is Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer and his group...MN ASAP...Minnesota Arms Spending Alternative Project. Don't know about Jack and his "common sense" approach...read more: http://wisdomvoices.com/a-budget-war-on-war-budgets/
As Eisenhower intended to say in his address: "The greatest danger to the people of the United States is the "Congressional Military-Industrial Complex." Eisenhower left out the White House because at that time there was some hope for change. Obama has driven the last nail into that coffin. It's time for a new party in all senses of the word.
Cuts may mean some real money for more important things.
National security means energy security.
Energy security means more concentrated solar themal with storage and wind power.
Investment in zero emissions for a fossil fuel independent economy will take decades for pay off.
Both cost of investment and Payoff will increase as price of energy rises.
Investment in keeping oil thirsty old derelict warships, planes and bases going will never pay off.
I know exactly how Panetta feels. When my anticipated lotto win failed to materialize, I suffered a $25 millon cut from my "projected" personal budget.
Posted by Goebbels sez
Jan 27 2012 - 11:36pm.I know exactly how Panetta feels. When my anticipated lotto win failed to materialize, I suffered a $25 millon cut from my "projected" personal budget.
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yeah! you get it! i just read comments on another article and found, even here, people interpret a "projected cut" to mean a "spending cut". nah, just means they'll inflate the military budget slower than planned......well. unless somebody scares the bejabbers out of our "leadership".
I had the same thing happen to me! What are the chances?
Wow sounds like the same circular logic that lead to the Wall St. who had to be bailed out passing out bonuses just months later.
You can be sure any ships or planes that are going to be retired were planned for retirement long ago. And the base closings, aren't BRAC commissions regularly scheduled?
Hey, just the day before 9/11 Rumsfeld told a press conference that the Pentagon had lost track of 3.4 trillion dollars, and the next day the Pentagon got a missile strike that blew up the accounting department. Convenient... end of story.
The Pentagon is, by law, supposed to be audited, but hasn't in years.
To become more responsible, until they are audited and remain so on an annual basis, why should they get any budget at all? Cut it in half, maybe, so as to shake out the loose change. Then when the audit is actually done, look at what sort of budget they deserve. Until the people remove their source of surplus cash, the money will continue to be used to corrupt us.