“I don’t think Vladimir Putin has a concern about what are defense budget is going to look like two or three or four years from now. I think he is more concerned about how we are going to use it today,” Rep. Larsen said. (John Kuhn/MEDILL)
WASHINGTON – In the midst of complex and wide-ranging threats from around the world, Congress needs to work with the Pentagon to get more out of the defense money it already spends, said members of the House Armed Services Committee Monday.
But Democratic Rep. Rick Larsen argued for setting limits on spending, while Republican Rep. Mac Thornberry said the defense budget should be increased.
“I don’t think it’s correct to assume that a bigger budget is a better budget,” Larsen said at a defense policy briefing at the Brookings Institution. “There’s been a lot of waste, fraud and abuse in the Defense Department during the 2000s when it seemed there was no limit in what the Defense Department got.”
Thornberry, although agreeing that money already budgeted to the military could be better spent, said the 0.number of threats facing the U.S. is greater “than perhaps ever before” so Congress needs to increase the defense budget to keep pace with Russia and China as they up their defense spending.
“There is a value in and of itself to numbers of ships and airplanes, and ammunition” that the U.S. maintains, Thornberry said. “My point is the world’s watching. The world has some doubts about us.”
Increasing the defense budget, he added, will send a clearer message that “we are going to do whatever it takes to defend ourselves, our interests and our allies.
Thornberry, from Texas, supported House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s budget proposal for fiscal year 2015, which called for in increase in defense spending by $43 billion in 2016 and by about $483 billion over 10 years. Neither Larsen, from Washington state, nor any House Democrats supported the Ryan budget.
“I don’t think Vladimir Putin has a concern about what are defense budget is going to look like two or three or four years from now. I think he is more concerned about how we are going to use it today,” Larsen said.
“In order to make the investments that we need for the future it might make sense for us to not make investments in things that we have in the past,” Larsen added.
Both men agreed that it’s important to emphasize the bipartisan support of standing by U.S. treaty agreements. President Obama underscored the same point last week, vowing that the U.S. security treaty with Japan extends to the Senkaku islands, which China also claim.
Todd Harrison, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a defense strategy think tank, said that as far as the defense budget goes, what matters is how you spend money, and not how much money you have.
“The real question for the U.S. right now is: ‘Are we spending it wisely? Are we spending it on the right things?’ And I think we got a long way to go right there,” Harrison said.
He said spending could be cut by reforming military compensation, closing some bases and reducing the size of the civilian Department of Defense workforce.
“Until we tackle a lot of those big issues – things that are politically difficult for Congress to do – we are not going to be addressing the real problem,” he said.
Published in conjunction with 
