The Pentagon Can Have Whatever It Wants. As Long As It’s Not Less Money.

There is a lot of defense spending in your future. 

The proposed defense budget is $554.2 billion, including $64
billion in war spending. The important number is the $490.1 billion
“base budget.” It is $3.3 billion larger than the amount allocated
for fiscal 2014 and $3 billion higher than the Pentagon itself
requested. Yes, that’s right: Congressional leaders are
forcing money on the Pentagon.

According to Politico Pro, that
extra $3 billion is not only packed with “goodies for the
military’s top defense contractors, including aerospace giants
Lockheed Martin and Boeing,” it’s a sign that the
commander-in-chief is already a lame duck.

President Barack Obama is losing some of the control over the
defense budget that his administration clawed away from top
military commanders early in his presidency, with the service
chiefs and Congress once again openly conspiring to undo tough
spending decisions made by the White House and the Pentagon.

The result: an omnibus spending package for this fiscal year
that includes money to buy lots of weapons the Pentagon didn’t
request but top commanders signaled they wanted anyway.

Here are some examples of the stuff Congress added above the
Pentagon’s requested:

The bill would reject some of the Pentagon’s major cost-cutting
efforts and shift money to congressionally popular programs such as
the A-10 close air support aircraft, called the “Warthog;” Boeing’s
radar-jamming EA-18G Growlers; and Raytheon Co.’s Tomahawk missiles
and ships, including the preservation of the aircraft carrier USS
George Washington.

The bill also includes four more F-35 planes than the Pentagon
requested, for a total of 38 planes. The F-35 is already more than a decade
overdue, more than 100 percent over budget, and it currently can’t
fly at night, in clouds, or near lightning.

This sort of profligate spending is consistent with what we saw
during the Bush years. A recent report from the Congressional Budget
Office (CBO) found that inflation-adjusted base funding jumped from
$384 billion in fiscal year 2000 to $502 billion in fiscal year
2014. That’s an increase of 31 percent. 

However, even that fat increase doesn’t do full justice to the
tremendous splurge in defense spending during the Bush years. There
was a 52 percent increase between 2001’s base budget (the lowest of
the decade) and 2010 (its peak level). These numbers exclude the
trillions of dollars spent on wars since 2003. Nor do they account
for all the defense-related spending that goes through other
departments such as the Department of Homeland Security and the
Department of Energy.

Defense contractors have benefited handsomely over the
past 15 years. They were somewhat frustrated by the minimal caps
placed on defense spending via sequestration, but they shouldn’t
have worried. Spending caps, especially when they are tied to
defense, are meant to be broken. Contractors are poised to keep
doing well, despite the ending of most operations in Iraq and
Afghanistan.

 The fastest growing share of the
Defense budget is pay and benefits for military and civilian
Defense Department employees, which has increased 46 percent in
real dollars. And of course, it is worse than it looks since
there are also substantial personnel costs contained within the
operations and maintenance component (O&M) of the budget. That
jumped 34 percent in real dollars between 2000 and 2014.

As with other parts of the federal government, health care
and pension costs for Defense workers are well on
their way to bankrupting us all. As we explained over at Mercatus:

About one-third of this increase was driven by increases
in federal civilian employee pay and benefits, excluding health
insurance. The cost of the Defense Health Benefits program doubled,
which accounted for another third of the increase in O&M. As
the CBO notes, “primary reasons for that growth are the new and
expanded TRICARE benefits that lawmakers authorized, including
expanded benefits for reservists and their families, and the very
low out-of-pocket costs of TRICARE relative to other health care
plans.” The rest of the increase in the O&M component can be
attributed to rising fuel costs, operations support, and
“other.” 

Congress clearly has no intention of refomring these
bloated programs. What’s make it even worse, Pentagon officials—who
understand that more health care spending means fewer tanks and
bombs—tried to include changes that would slow the rate of growth
in benefits in the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act. It
turns out that the military can get anything it wants. As long as
it’s not less money.

In 2012, Reason TV outlined “3 Reasons Conservatives
Should Cut Defense Spending Now!” Watch below: