This week we’ll hear proposals to massively increase military spending in the face of last year’s outcries about “draconian” cuts to our defense budget and criticism of “out of control” spending on public services. But don’t be fooled by the hyperbole. In fact, our military budget, still at historically unprecedented highs, was cut by less than one percentlast year. The president’s proposed FY16 budget again preserves our outsized military spending while continuing a long, dangerous trend of underfunding human needs.
I might describe cuts that will displace thousands of children from Head Start programs as ugly, or cuts to low-income families already struggling to survive as brutal. And cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program that might send millions of kids to bed hungry could be described as draconian. But the military spending cuts that we’ve had so far are as gentle and easy as cuts come. A better grasp on how much our government is actually spending on the military might be the first step to an honest debate about our spending priorities.
It’s hard to follow the money, even for those of us who study the budget process. For example, the original cuts slated for military spending under the Budget Control Act in FY14 amounted to around $56 billion. However, there was a $20.3 billion reduction in cuts through the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013, then another $20 billion of non-war funding that was requested by the Pentagon, and an additional $10.8 billion from a Congressional war funding account (read slush fund) to cover regular military expenses. The final Pentagon reduction: $3.6 billion.
Is that a big cut? Not to an overall military budget of well over half a trillion dollars annually, a mindboggling amount that represents nearly half of the entire world’s military spending. But the money we spend on the military in the name of security becomes even more astounding when you consider what we’re not willing to invest federal dollars in.