Responding to popular demand (okay, one person asked if I was planning to write about this topic) I decided to focus on the recently passed Federal Budget today. I’ve written previously about the federal budget process and how it has ceased to work as expected. Click on these links to re-read these essays:
However, I’ve narrowed my focus for today. I’m going to write about the defense portion of the federal budget. I was stimulated to write about this part of the budget by a newsletter I got in my email earlier this week. Here’s the link to the newsletter if you’d like to read it.
I gotta tell you, I didn’t like reading this newsletter. I am a committed Democrat and always have been. These days, there is no reasonable alternative to the Democratic party in America. But this newsletter made me think about my commitment as I read about how, over the decades, the Democrats have become toadies for the military-industrial complex (to use President Eisenhower’s words).
To put all of this in perspective, you have to understand, first, that there are two categories of government spending:
Mandatory – these are things like interest on the national debt, entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare, Medicaid, other benefits like SNAP and Unemployment Insurance, and various types of tax credits that are not subject to annual budgeting. Nearly 50% of all federal spending is made up of these mandatory expenditures.
Discretionary --- items that are subject to yearly budgeting. In general, more than half of this discretionary spending supports national defense. The rest goes to other government agencies or programs like transportation, education, housing, social service programs, and science and environmental organizations.
The yearly budget provides only a part of the picture regarding federal spending; much of the money spent in a given fiscal year was appropriated in previous budget years but not allocated or spent until this year. So a $1.7 trillion budget doesn’t really identify what is spent in a year. In 2023, federal spending (outlays) are expected to be in the range of $9 trillion, which includes money mandatory spending (not included in the budget) and money allocated by previous budget bills.
If you want to know more about all of this, here’s another article you can read.
Seymour Melmans note in his book Pentagon Capitalism that since the Second World War, the federal government has spent more than half of its discretionary budget on past, current, and future military operations. It is the largest single activity of the government.
Over the last 40 years, the Democratic Party has done almost nothing to stand in the way of federal spending on the military.
Most of the readers of this newsletter remember the antiwar movement that was based in the Democratic Party in the 1960s and 1970s. People were divided between “hawks” and “doves,” and everyone knew the doves were largely within the Democratic Party. George McGovern was annihilated in the 1972 presidential election because of his identification with the antiwar movement. We weren’t gonna study war no more.
Since this time, the whole notion of patriotism has become militarized. Politicians in America ((no matter what their political bent) routinely end their speeches by saying some variant of “God bless America, and God bless our troops.” No one in uniform can go into a grocery store or 7-11 without someone saying “thank you for your service.” Refusing to recite the Pledge of Allegiance at various random times – or, heaven forbid, kneeling to protest the fact that America is hardly an example of “liberty and justice for all” – evokes rabid accusations that you are a Communist, or are “against our troops,” or in various ways anti-American. You can lose your career a la Colin Kaipernick.
After almost 20 years in oblivion, by the 1990s Democrats had concluded that the way back to national political power was through recovering the “hawk” label from the Republicans. Democrats began talk up defense expenditures and solicit campaign contributions from weapons manufacturers as assiduously as the Republicans.
Which leads to our current moment. The United States spends more on the military than the next nine countries, including China and Russia, combined. The budget of the Pentagon now exceeds the budgets for the next ten largest cabinet agencies combined. In the 2023 budget, Congress actually gave the military $45 billion more than President Biden had requested.
Although conventional wisdom says that American politics is hopelessly divided, military spending is the one area where the parties come together to approve massive increases.
It is remarkable that opposition to military spending these days is more likely to come from Team Crazy in the House – the Lauren Boeberts, Marjorie Taylor Greens, and Matt Gaetzes of the world – rather than from Democrats. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez was the only Democrat to vote against military aid to Ukraine or the bloated military budget while only nine House Republicans joined the Democrats to approve this bill.
While we routinely and happily feed a defense budget that is more than the Defense Department wants or needs, we starve other portions of the budget. Efforts to fund “soft” programs like child nutrition, food stamps, or a minimum wage are met with objections to the possibility of inflation or an increased deficit. However, concerns about the inflationary or deficit impacts of Defense spending are waved off in the face of “national security.”
More than half of this military spending goes to private contractors – who make massive campaign contributions ($18.9 million in 2022) and employ hundreds of lobbyists to ensure that the pipeline will not dry up. The revolving door between the defense industry and the Pentagon facilitates corruption, as people like Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, who was paid $300,000 a year to be on the board of Raytheon, are nominated by a Democratic president. It is not surprising that Austin is an advocate for large military spending increases. Raytheon awaits him upon retirement from his current gig if he plays his cards right.
NOTE: I do not know Lloyd Austin. By all accounts, he is a fine and honorable man. But facts are facts.
The only cuts in the this year’s Defense budget were in the part that goes to salary and benefits for the low-level DOD employees (those making less than $45,000 a year – both uniformed and civilian). A portion of these benefits was removed by House and Senate negotiators. Military personnel do not have lobbyists to match the power of the defense industry, so Congress can get away with cutting this part of the budget.
President Eisenhower warned against the military-industrial complex in his 1961 Farewell Address at the end of his presidency. As a war hero who rode his fame to a successful presidency, Eisenhower was perhaps the one person who could warn against militarism. If he made these remarks today, he would be admonished and told to go live somewhere else if he doesn’t love America.
A great read. I find the candid remarks refreshing. Thanks! I’m hoping you will write an opinion on the McCarthy and friends situation when the time is right.