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Kill Defense Pork
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Kill Defense Pork
by Doug Bandow
Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute.
Added to cato.org on December 6, 1999
This article appeared on cato.org on December 6, 1999.
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Republicans and Democrats alike claim to support fiscal responsibility,
but you wouldn't know it from the defense budget. The House-Senate Conference
Committee has approved $288.8 billion in budget authority for next year --
$8.3 billion more than requested by the Clinton administration, whose own
proposal was larded with pork.
The Pentagon and its allies have been arguing that the military is
starved for funds. Yet the defense budget, adjusted for inflation, remains at the
level of 1980, when there was a Cold War, Soviet Union, and Warsaw Pact. Congress
has only repealed the Reagan military build-up.
Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute.
Personnel retention and service readiness have been suffering, but not
due to inadequate spending. The problem is the administration's promiscuous
deployment of U.S. forces for frivolous purposes to Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo,
and more.
Anyway, there is more than enough money available to maintain service
quality. Unfortunately, the funds are being squandered to subsidize
businessmen and reelect congressmen.
As William Hartung of the World Policy Institute points out in a new
study for the Cato Institute, the federal government spent $7.9 billion in 1996
(the most recent year for which all figures are available) to promote $12
billion worth of global arms sales. Federal R&D subsidies underwrite not only
Pentagon weapons purchases but also profitable foreign exports. Moreover, a sizable
share of the $120 billion in procurement is wasted on arms that even the Pentagon
doesn't want.
Export subsidies are one special interest Pentagon boondoggle. Through
the Foreign Military Financing Program the Defense Department has given grants
and loans to Albania, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Egypt, Estonia, Greece, Israel,
Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Russia, Turkey, Uzbekistan, and numerous other
nations to buy U.S. weapons. There are also loan guarantees from the Defense Export
Loan Guarantee Fund; the Foreign Military Sales program has provided loans (many
of which have been written off) and grants for the purchase of American
weapons.
Between 1990 and 1995 the Pentagon dumped, as gifts or at deep discounts,
weapons that originally cost $8.7 billion. The beneficiaries of this
largess included Australia, one of Asia's wealthiest countries (Canberra paid about
10 cents on the dollar). Complained the Federation of American Scientists,
"the services appear to be giving away still useful equipment to justify
procurement of new weaponry."
Washington offers a variety of other subsidies for weapons exporters:
special corporate tax breaks, Economic Support Funds to foreign buyers, sales
promotion by the Commerce, Defense, and State departments, and government-funded
equipment, factories, and research and development. The Pentagon has even
provided as much as $1.8 billion to government officials who have tried to
hide the total cost to underwrite corporate mergers among arms-makers.
Equally expensive is the pork that permeates weapons procurement. The
Pentagon buys about $120 billion in goods and services every year, creating
an enormous honey pot for legislators and interest groups.
According to Hartung, Congress added $30 billion to Pentagon requests
over the last four years, "mostly for big-ticket weapons systems built in the
districts or states of congressional leaders or members of key committees."
Primarily self-proclaimed fiscal conservative Republican members, it should
be noted.
While overall procurement spending fell between 1986 and 1996, nine
states increased the amount they collected in Pentagon contracts. These states,
such as South Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia are represented by
particularly influential legislators.
In announcing the congressional conference committee's agreement on
$288.8 billion in budget authority for fiscal year 2000, House Armed Services
Committee Chairman Floyd Spence explained: "Despite our best efforts, however, we are
only managing the growing risks to our national security, not eliminating them.
Absent a long-term, sustained commitment to revitalizing America's armed
forces, we will continue to run the inevitable risks that come from asking our
troops to do more with less."
Instead of spending more, Washington should ask its troops to do less.
The United States need not defend prosperous and populous allies. It need not
try to put Humpty-Dumpty nations back together. Then the Pentagon could spend less
-- far less.
Moreover, Congress should spend military dollars more efficiently. All
pork wastes taxpayer funds. Pentagon pork also weakens America's defense. By
exercising a little more fiscal responsibility Congress could end up saving
the lives of U.S. servicemen and women.
Also of interest
 Smart Power: Toward a Prudent Foreign Policy for AmericaForeign policy expert Ted Galen Carpenter outlines strategies for protecting America's security while avoiding unnecessary and unrewarding military adventures.
Opinion and Commentary
The US Military's Fallout ShelterA Nowhere Foreign Policy DebateA Profile in CowardiceThe Limits of DeterrenceKosovo Precedent PrevailsMusharraf Has Gone, but Is Civilian Rule Better?Woodrow Wilson's WarShould People in Democratic Glass Houses Throw Stones?
Studies
Parting with Illusions: Developing a Realistic Approach to Relations with RussiaLearning the Right Lessons from IraqCracks in the Foundation: NATO's New TroublesThe American Way of War: Cultural Barriers to Successful CounterinsurgencyReappraising Nuclear Security StrategyFailed States and Flawed Logic: The Case against a Standing Nation-Building Office$400 Billion Defense Budget Unnecessary to Fight War on TerrorismNuclear Deterrence, Preventive War, and Counterproliferation
General Strategy and U.S. Foreign Policy Military Personnel and Readiness
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