A Rational Budget for the Pentagon
In their budget-cutting zeal, Republicans are demanding harsh sacrifices from the country’s most vulnerable citizens. At the same, they are determined to leave one of the biggest areas of wasteful government spending untouched: the Pentagon budget.
The budget plan they pushed through the House this month would spend $7.5 trillion on the military over the next dozen years. And that does not include the cost of actual war-fighting. The country cannot afford to spend that much, and it doesn’t need to.
The $7.5 trillion was President Obama’s projection, which he has since lowered to $7.1 trillion. Saving $400 billion is better but still not enough, especially since it can be achieved merely by holding annual nonwar-related spending at its current swollen level, adjusted for inflation.
National security is a fundamental responsibility of government. Since Sept. 11, 2001, the Pentagon has spent without limits and in some cases without sense. Annual budgets, adjusted for inflation, have grown by 50 percent in the past decade. And that is apart from the more than $1 trillion spent on operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The White House and Congress must impose some rationality on this process. Here is a path that could save hundreds of billions of dollars more through 2024:
PERSONNEL Pay and benefits account for nearly half of the basic Pentagon budget. The size of the uniformed services should not be reduced, at least for now. The Pentagon’s civilian work force, currently 650,000, should be cut by up to 10 percent, saving more than $7 billion a year.
We in no way minimize the sacrifices made by our men and women in uniform. But after years of lagging far behind, military pay is now more than $5,000 a year higher than comparable civilian employment, more than $10,000 a year higher when special allowances and benefits are counted. Freezing noncombat pay for three years would save $3 billion per year. The formula for future increases should be adjusted to incorporate allowances and benefits, saving an additional $5 billion a year.
Another $4 billion to $6 billion annually could be saved by reasonable increases in annual health insurance premiums for military retirees of working age. Those premiums — currently $460 per family — have been frozen for the past 15 years while health care costs soared.
All told, these changes would save about $20 billion annually or more than $200 billion over the next 12 years.
FORCE STRUCTURE The Pentagon took too long to recognize that today’s wars make more intensive demands on the Army and Marines and less on the Navy and Air Force. Ground forces have been increased, but that needs to be paid for by corresponding reductions at sea and in the air. That shift has already begun but needs to go further. Another $1 billion to $2 billion a year could be saved by reducing the number of aircraft carrier groups from 11 to 10 and associated air wings from 10 to 9.
PROCUREMENT Twenty years after the cold war’s end, the Pentagon is addicted to hugely expensive weapons systems that are poorly suited to current and future military needs. Defense Secretary Robert Gates successfully pressed Congress to end production of the costly Air Force F-22. He now needs to cut way back on the far overbudget F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Far fewer of these are needed to assure American dominance of the skies. Terminating the deeply troubled Marine Corps version of the F-35 and cutting back the Navy and Air Force versions by 50 percent would save $130 billion over the life of the program, with most of those savings achieved in the 2020s. Eliminating the Marine Corps’ costly and accident-prone V-22 Osprey vertical take off and landing aircraft would save another $10 billion to $12 billion. Further savings may be possible by scaling down future orders for the Virginia class nuclear attack submarine and reconsidering the newly vulnerable littoral combat ship.
For too long America’s military spending decisions have been insulated from serious scrutiny or discipline. The result is that more than 50 cents of every dollar of discretionary federal spending now goes to the Pentagon. There is no way to bring the deficit under control without making substantial and rational cuts in that budget.
Good Advice From S.& P.
Anything the credit rating agencies say has to be taken with a block of salt. In the run-up to the financial crisis, they were enablers of excess, happily slapping AAA ratings on the toxic assets of their Wall Street customers. The same happened with Enron and other debacles.
So it was encouraging to see markets recover quickly from the news on Monday that Standard & Poor’s had lowered its outlook on the United States rating from stable to negative. Still, the announcement is worth reflecting on.
The gist of the report is that the credit standing of the United States will be impaired unless credible political action is undertaken to address its long-term budget deficits and large national debt burden.
In what amounts to a warning to lawmakers and other government leaders to get moving on deficit reduction, S.& P. said that there was a 1-in-3 chance that it could lower the AAA rating of the United States government within two years. That could cause interest rates to rise and to stay high, increasing the burden of paying back the debt and weakening the economy at large.
If the S.& P. warning convinces Congressional Republicans not to play games later this spring, when votes will be needed to raise the nation’s debt limit, it will have done some good. Republican rhetoric to the contrary, a debt limit vote is not the appropriate place to make a stand about future budgets. It pertains to obligations already incurred — like the Medicare drug benefit and the war in Afghanistan, both from the Bush era and financed by creditors who expect and deserve to be paid in full and on time.
If the warning is misconstrued to mean that deep and immediate spending cuts are needed — as Republicans have claimed — it will be counterproductive. Even S.& P. noted that given the difficult compromises ahead, the earliest plausible date to begin deficit reduction is late 2013, when the budget for fiscal year 2014 is due. What investors need to see before then, the report noted, is the emergence and debate of credible budget plans, with an eye toward implementation after the election in 2012. That is both politically realistic and economically sound because deep deficit reduction before then would risk derailing the economic recovery.
As credit raters, S.& P. and the other ratings agencies have squandered their credibility. But as a launcher of a shot across the bow in the budget battle, S.& P. did well.
Making Campuses Safer
Federal statistics suggest that as many as 1 in 5 women will be victims of sexual assault during their college years. Far too many women who report their attackers are then victimized by complaint systems that are difficult to navigate and disciplinary proceedings that are stacked against them. The Education Department’s civil rights office has issued new guidelines for schools with the aim of making campuses safer.
At the moment, the department has open investigations of possible Title IX violations at several universities, including Yale, where 16 students and recent graduates have accused the university of tolerating a hostile environment toward women on campus.
The guidelines press schools to have a zero-tolerance attitude toward sexual assault and harassment and to adopt a complaint process that gives equal protection to the accusers and accused. Schools that fail to comply would be at risk of losing federal aid or facing legal sanctions.
The new guidance requires that the accuser and the accused have the same rights. The guidance makes clear that both the accused and the accuser also need to be notified in writing about outcomes of complaint procedures. It further warns schools that they must not try to dissuade accusers from filing criminal complaints either during or after the internal investigations that schools are required to undertake.
Schools will also have to create violence-prevention programs that include better training for coaches, residence hall counselors and others. A cultural change is essential to make campuses safer places for all.
Gov. Brewer Shows Some Moxie
A ray of sunshine emanating from a most unlikely source briefly penetrated the gloom of Arizona’s right-wing politics on Monday.
To the consternation of her Republican allies in the State Legislature, Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona vetoed two absurd bills: one allowing guns on university campuses; the other requiring presidential candidates to provide detailed proof of citizenship, including a sworn affidavit and a long-form birth certificate, before they could appear on the Arizona ballot.
Ms. Brewer called the ballot bill “a bridge too far.” That’s saying something coming from a governor who, last year, proudly signed a mean-spirited measure giving local police extraordinary powers to arrest anyone who could not immediately prove they were here legally.
Ms. Brewer was less forthright in her veto statement on the gun bill. An earlier version would have allowed guns anywhere on campus, including classrooms. The final bill would have allowed weapons on “a public right of way,” presumably sidewalks and roads, but the governor said she found the language too vague. This leaves open the disturbing possibility that Ms. Brewer, a strong advocate of gun rights, might someday sign a more precisely worded measure.
This does not mean that Ms. Brewer is a new person politically, but it does suggest that she has limits. Her allies in the state’s over-the-top Legislature need to find some of their own.
0 comments:
Post a Comment