Gregg Easterbrook: The Pentagon's Wasteful Defense Spending
[Gregg Easterbrook is a contributing editor at The New Republic.]
This year, the United States will spend at least $700 billion on defense and security. Adjusting for inflation, that’s more than America has spent on defense in any year since World War II—more than during the Korean war, the Vietnam war, or the Reagan military buildup. Much of that enormous sum results from spending increases under presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Since 2001, military and security expenditures have soared by 119 percent.
For most of that time, of course, the United States has been fighting two wars. Yet that’s not the cause of the defense-spending explosion. Even if the costs of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan are subtracted, the defense budget has swelled by 68 percent since 2001. (All money figures in this article are stated in 2010 dollars.) The U.S. defense budget is now about the same as military spending in all other countries combined.
In a historically unusual twist, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, a Republican appointee and a former CIA director, has repeatedly acknowledged that military costs are untenable and decried the Pentagon’s “culture of endless money.” But despite Gates’s advocacy, and Obama’s backing, not much has changed. Congressional leaders nod in agreement at talk of reform—then demand that their pet projects be fully funded. A recent Gates proposal, received as if it heralded dramatic cuts, seeks merely to constrain Pentagon budget growth to 2 percent to 3 percent over inflation. At that pace, defense and security costs will hit a ruinous $1 trillion annually by 2030.
Pentagon profligacy is not a new phenomenon. But an ugly melee is brewing regarding America’s unsustainable government spending—and defense and security costs cannot be exempted from tough decisions over what the country can and cannot afford. And yet, security spending and military deployment are presented to the nation as virtually untouchable. If the Pentagon wants something, the logic goes, then it must be necessary. This is far from true....
While some of the causes of rising defense spending are worthy, many are not. The most egregious case is the Pentagon’s legendary procurement screwup. These are partly the result of payoffs and corruption scandals, such as those involving Darleen Druyun, a top Air Force procurement officer, and former California Representative Randy “Duke” Cunningham. But there’s a more insidious atrophy at work. Pressure-point lobbying has made it hard for the Department of Defense to render final acquisition decisions. Instead, programs are perennially “stretched,” becoming more and more expensive while less and less of value is produced.
Exhibit A for this phenomenon is the F-22 fighter jet. Lockheed Martin was chosen as the prime contractor in 1991. But the plane did not become operational for 14 years, as lawmakers scrapped over which congressional districts would receive the subcontracts. While deadlines kept passing, taxpayers paid billions. Through the years of wheel-spinning, F-22 costs more than doubled in inflationadjusted terms per plane. The Air Force’s entire B-58 project—which produced the world’s first long-range supersonic bomber—took six years, from when the prototype first flew in 1956 till the final B-58 left the assembly hangar. Back when Pentagon spending was much lower, there was discipline about completing programs on time....
Read entire article at The New Republic
This year, the United States will spend at least $700 billion on defense and security. Adjusting for inflation, that’s more than America has spent on defense in any year since World War II—more than during the Korean war, the Vietnam war, or the Reagan military buildup. Much of that enormous sum results from spending increases under presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Since 2001, military and security expenditures have soared by 119 percent.
For most of that time, of course, the United States has been fighting two wars. Yet that’s not the cause of the defense-spending explosion. Even if the costs of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan are subtracted, the defense budget has swelled by 68 percent since 2001. (All money figures in this article are stated in 2010 dollars.) The U.S. defense budget is now about the same as military spending in all other countries combined.
In a historically unusual twist, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, a Republican appointee and a former CIA director, has repeatedly acknowledged that military costs are untenable and decried the Pentagon’s “culture of endless money.” But despite Gates’s advocacy, and Obama’s backing, not much has changed. Congressional leaders nod in agreement at talk of reform—then demand that their pet projects be fully funded. A recent Gates proposal, received as if it heralded dramatic cuts, seeks merely to constrain Pentagon budget growth to 2 percent to 3 percent over inflation. At that pace, defense and security costs will hit a ruinous $1 trillion annually by 2030.
Pentagon profligacy is not a new phenomenon. But an ugly melee is brewing regarding America’s unsustainable government spending—and defense and security costs cannot be exempted from tough decisions over what the country can and cannot afford. And yet, security spending and military deployment are presented to the nation as virtually untouchable. If the Pentagon wants something, the logic goes, then it must be necessary. This is far from true....
While some of the causes of rising defense spending are worthy, many are not. The most egregious case is the Pentagon’s legendary procurement screwup. These are partly the result of payoffs and corruption scandals, such as those involving Darleen Druyun, a top Air Force procurement officer, and former California Representative Randy “Duke” Cunningham. But there’s a more insidious atrophy at work. Pressure-point lobbying has made it hard for the Department of Defense to render final acquisition decisions. Instead, programs are perennially “stretched,” becoming more and more expensive while less and less of value is produced.
Exhibit A for this phenomenon is the F-22 fighter jet. Lockheed Martin was chosen as the prime contractor in 1991. But the plane did not become operational for 14 years, as lawmakers scrapped over which congressional districts would receive the subcontracts. While deadlines kept passing, taxpayers paid billions. Through the years of wheel-spinning, F-22 costs more than doubled in inflationadjusted terms per plane. The Air Force’s entire B-58 project—which produced the world’s first long-range supersonic bomber—took six years, from when the prototype first flew in 1956 till the final B-58 left the assembly hangar. Back when Pentagon spending was much lower, there was discipline about completing programs on time....