One useful, currently missing tool to ground and better inform the federal budget debate, we argue, would be a Unified Security Budget (USB). It would pull together in one place U.S. spending on all of its security tools: tools of offense (military forces), defense (homeland security) and prevention (non-military international engagement.) A unified Security Budget would make it much easier for Congress to consider overall security spending priorities and the best allocation of them.
It would, for example, enable consideration of security trade-offs like the following: the F-22 fighter jet, one of the most troubled and strategically questionable programs in the arsenal, is set to receive an increase in FY 2008 of $600 million.
- Finding: Foregoing this increase could allow the U.S. to triple the amount it plans to spend on canceling the debt that is crippling development in the poorest countries in the world. Or it could increase by 50 percent U.S. contributions to international peacekeeping operations. Or it could more than triple the amount allocated in FY 2007 for domestic rail and transit security programs.
- Or consider: The cost of one day’s military operations in Iraq—approximately $350 million—would cover the entire requested budget for the State Department’s Office of Reconstruction and Stabilization for a year. This corps of civilian experts in post-conflict rebuilding, envisioned for Iraq and other locations such as Haiti and Sudan, has been an unfunded political football since it was proposed in 2003. The Pentagon supports it. “If you don’t fund this, put more money in the defense budget for ammunition—because I’m going to need it,” one Marine general recently said.[3]
Since 2004, a Unified Security Budget Task Force made up of some of our nation’s leading national security and military strategists has produced an annual report sketching the outlines of a Unified Security Budget. Their expertise spans all three security domains—offense, defense and prevention. We recommend reading their report to all of our colleagues. It lays out the spending levels and relative proportions allocated by President Bush’s FY 2008 budget request to each of them. Let me highlight a few key findings:
- Finding: While cutting most of the rest of the discretionary budget, the Bush request increases real spending in all three security categories. The defense and prevention categories actually get larger increases, as a proportion of their total budgets, than does offense. But in absolute terms, of course, military spending increases the most. And comparatively, defense and prevention remain vastly overshadowed by spending on offense. Foreign policy by military force is underwritten at 21 times the level allocated to all non-military forms of engagement with the world; it receives 14 times the amount devoted to protecting the homeland; it will outspend both defense and prevention put together -- that is, all forms of non-military security spending -- by a factor of 9 to 1. In other words, President Bush wants to devote 90 percent of our foreign and security policy resources to engaging the world through military force.
One of the drivers of this gaping Bush disparity between military and non-military security spending is the federal commitment to a set of dazzlingly complex weapons systems whose capabilities have more to do with pork barrel inertia than strategic sense, and whose future costs are set to grow even larger as many of them move from development to production phases. In making its case for a rebalanced security portfolio, our Progressive Caucus budget identifies cuts in these programs and explains why they can be made with no sacrifice to U.S. national security. And it identifies a nearly equivalent amount for increased investment in activities and programs that engage the world by non-military means—including diplomacy, non-proliferation, and economic development—and that strengthen our homeland defenses.
- Finding: The shift recommended in the Progressive Caucus budget away from spending on offense and additional spending on defense and prevention—would roughly convert a highly militarized security ratio of 9 to 1 into a better balance of 5 to 1.
The hard part will be getting this done on Capitol Hill. A congressional budget process working through “stove piped” committees that rarely talk to each other makes this difficult.
But rebalancing security spending to reflect post 9/11 realities and needs is not a task that can wait. The latest BBC World Service poll shows that U.S. standing in the world has deteriorated substantially in the last year alone.[4] And valuable time is being wasted on key security priorities, such as the one that President Bush has identified as Number One --- preventing nuclear terrorism.
- Finding: Among other cuts in spending on nonproliferation, President Bush’s FY2008 budget request would again reduce spending for Cooperative Threat Reduction, one of the key programs securing and dismantling international stockpiles of nuclear material to keep them away from terrorists. At the same time, the Bush budget would triple spending on new designs for nuclear weapons, in violation of our commitment to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (giving other countries tacit permission to follow suit.) Meanwhile, the State Department has been reduced to accepting private donations to make up the shortfall on what it views as urgent nonproliferation priorities. Five million dollars of private money recently paid for the removal of two bombs-worth of highly enriched uranium from Serbia. A former State Department official involved in this project said, “It was embarrassing [but] we needed the money.” [5]
As this Congress struggles to find a solution to the crisis in Iraq, it must simultaneously work to strengthen a different kind of overall US presence in the world—one that emphasizes working with international partners to resolve conflicts and tackle looming human security problems like climate change, one that prevents the spread of nuclear materials by means other than regime change, and one that addresses the root causes of terrorism, while protecting the homeland against it. And the rhetoric of these intentions must be underwritten by the resources to make them real. The overall priorities set in a Unified Security Budget must be symbol as well as substance of a new, better balanced U.S. foreign policy and national security strategy.
Fully-funded, safe, orderly U.S. military disengagement from Iraq by the end of 2007. Let’s start with what is clearly the single largest waste of U.S. taxpayers’ money and the biggest current drain on the U.S. Treasury today – sustaining more than 150,000 brave U.S. soldiers in the middle of the civil war in Iraq. Truth be told, neither President Bush’s budget request or even the budget resolution reported by the House Budget Committee comes anywhere near a complete and accurate accounting of how much of our national treasure we are squandering in the Iraq quagmire. According to the Congressional Research Service, $350 billion has already been spent in Iraq and that total is certain to top half a trillion dollars by the end of FY08, if Congress approves all of the supplemental and regular war-time appropriations President Bush has requested, including for his troop surge. It boggles the mind to contemplate how much more effectively and wisely those funds could have been invested. No Member of this Congress can claim credibly to be fiscally responsible and not tackle head-on the soaring, unsustainable financial costs of the Iraq debacle. Accordingly, I hope our Republican and Blue Dog Democrats colleagues are listening. The Progressive Caucus budget is the most transparent and accurate when it comes to scoring the fiscal impact of on-going U.S. military operations in Iraq. We can save at least $202.3 billion in just the remainder of FY07 and all of FY08, if we end the U.S. military occupation of Iraq by this coming December 31st. Our budget will save between $420.75 billion and $623.05 billion over the next nine fiscal years based upon and extrapolating from the only CBO estimates currently available about the costs of U.S. military operations in Iraq. Cutting outdated and unneeded weapons systems ($60 billion/year). The Defense Department is wrought with waste, fraud, and abuse as it continues to spend in excess of $60 billion a year on holdover Cold War era weapons systems. It’s time that we bring some common sense back to the budget process and see to it that the basic human needs of all Americans come before the needs of the military industrial complex. The Progressive Caucus budget targets weapons programs that are either outdated or poorly conceived from the very beginning for elimination. Despite what a handful of giant defense contractors would have us believe, this inexcusable waste actually makes us less safe. Below is a list of weapons systems that have been identified by military experts, including Dr. Lawrence Korb, former Deputy Secretary of Defense in the Reagan Administration; Admiral Stansfield Turner- Former CIA Director; Vice Admiral John. J. Shanahan; and Brigadier General Dallas Brown, Jr. Ballistic Missile Defense:· It has not been realistically tested. · Moreover, to fulfill then candidate George W. Bush’s campaign promise, the Pentagon took a number of shortcuts that put schedule ahead of performance.· The shortcuts included insufficient ground tests of key components, a lack of specifications and standards, and a tendency to postpone the resolution of difficult issues. · Finally, there is increasing evidence that no matter how much money is spent and no matter how long we continue to test it, the system can never work effectively. Nuclear Arsenal:· Reduce the number of nuclear warheads that we stockpile from 10,000 to 1,000.· This would save us $13 billion a year and we would still allow the U.S. to maintain nuclear superiority over the rest of the world. F/A-22 Raptor:· The U.S. already maintains air superiority around the world with the current generation of Air Force fighters.· Few countries have the capability of air to air fighting, which this plane is designed for.· Originally developed to outpace Soviet MIG technology by anticipating the next generation of MIG, which were never built.· Canceling the program now would leave the Air Force with 100 of these planes, which is more than enough to combat the any future air-to-air threat that may emerge. DDG 1000 Zumwalt Class Destroyer:- Navy already has ships that are focused on the same type of missions, but are more effective.
- Like the F/A-22, these vessels were built to outpace the next generation of Soviet submarine.
- These new vessels fail to go beyond the capabilities of submarines already in service.
- This aircraft that takes off like a helicopter and flies like a jet, has been plagued with technical problems since its inception.
- In the past 25 years development of the V-22 has resulted in 30 deaths, and despite the expenditure of more than $20 billion, it is nearly 15 years behind schedule.
- Of the 62 C-130J transport aircraft that have been purchased by the Pentagon, none have met commercial contract specifications. Because of this, the C-130J cannot perform its intended mission of transporting troops and equipment into combat zones and can be used only for training.
- There are immense technological challenges of trying to build three fairly different planes (one for each branch of the military) from one design; the program should not be rushed. This country’s overwhelming numerical and qualitative advantage in tactical aircraft will not soon be challenged.
- As such, this program can be slowed down and done right and in the process save billions of dollars.
- Space-based weapons would not significantly expand U.S. military superiority.
- Our conventional and nuclear weapons are already capable of destroying any of the ground targets that space-based weapons would and they can do it at a fraction of the cost.
- While many military experts agree that these systems are useful, the funding for the research is far too aggressive at this point. $3 billion can be saved per year by scaling back this program to a more reasonable pace.
- President Bush has increased this program by more than 50% since coming into office and we are now spending more on R, D, T, &E then during the height of the Reagan build-up. Fighting terrorism hardly warrants such investment in space-based technology.
- As such, this program will be reduced by a less than 7% and save $5 billion a year.
- The Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps have more than 5,000 tactical combat planes and 1,800 armed helicopters, which is an impractical number for the threat that we currently face. We would reduce the number of two active Air Force wings and one carrier battle group, which would not compromise our security, but would save $5 billion a year.
Between 2001 and 2006, GAO provided the Department of Defense with 2544 recommendations for improving waste fraud and abuse in their rank. Many of these recommendations are related to improving their business practices. The Department is required to respond to each recommendation and GAO follows up on each recommendation to determine whether the Department has instituted sufficient corrective actions. To date, the Department of Defense has implemented 1014 recommendations and closed 152 recommendations without implementation. The GAO estimates that the 1014 implemented recommendations have yielded the Department of Defense a savings of $52.7 billion between fiscal years 2001 and 2006. The savings realized from the implementation of these recommendations has been extraordinary. With this in mind, the DOD should take immediate action to implement as soon as possible the remaining 1,378 recommendations to achieve further substantial savings.
International affairs (150) SMART SecurityWeapons of mass destruction, far-flung terrorism, grinding poverty, and corrupt, oppressive nationalistic governments represent urgent threats to peace and security in the 21st Century. It is more important now than ever to address the root causes of terrorism and violent conflict to prevent future acts of terrorism from occurring. The Progressive Caucus ‘Peace and Security’ budget would rely upon what we call a Sensible, Multilateral American Response to Terrorism (SMART) Security Platform for the 21st Century. It will operationalize a more effective national security strategy than the Bush doctrine of preemptive warfare and focus more of our limited resources upon nonproliferation, conflict prevention, international diplomacy, and multilateralism. SMART security in action means:
· Working with the UN, NATO and other multilateral organizations to root out terrorist networks and cut off their funding and bases of support;
· Strengthening intelligence and law enforcement, while respecting human rights and protecting civil liberties;
· Pursuing diplomacy, enhanced inspection regimes, and regional security arrangements to reduce the proliferation of nuclear weapons;
· Ceasing the sale and transfer of weapons to regimes involved in human rights abuses and to regions of conflict;
· Increasing development aid and debt relief for the world’s poorest countries;
· Reducing dependence on foreign oil by promoting long-term energy security through greater investment in sustainable and renewable alternatives; and
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