By CATHERINE NGAI
WASHINGTON – In the 2010 fiscal year, the United States allotted $663.8 billion for defense, a number that some analysts deemed too high. Amid the nation’s budget deficit and national debt problems, some argue that cutting back on the 2011 defense budget request proposal of $708 billion is the only way to help the economy in the future.
“It’s very important, when it comes to discretionary spending, that we look at everything,” said Laicie Olson, senior policy analyst at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, a non-profit and non-partisan research organization based in Washington, DC, in an interview. “The military makes up 55 percent of discretionary spending. It’s a giant chunk. We have to consider it if we can make any headway.”
The defense budget is broken down by specific sections such as military personnel funding, operations and maintenance, procurement as well as research, development, test and evaluation. However, the budget is also broken into another category called discretionary spending.
Defined as the amount of federal money that the government is not obligated to make, discretionary spending is negotiated between Congress and the President. The defense budget is under this discretionary spending. Non-discretionary items are obligatory and include social security and Medicare.
In 2004, President George Bush was criticized after he incorrectly stated during an interview with NBC that annual federal discretionary spending slowed since he took office. This amount is heavily criticized because it affects the budget the most since it’s not an obligatory expense.
According to statistics from the World Bank, military spending made up approximately 4.6 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product in 2009. Although defense spending is only a small percentage of the total GDP, some analysts see it in a different context.
“If you eliminated all military spending, you would reduce the budget enough [to helps stabilize the economy],” said Kevin Stevens, Director of the School of Accountancy and Management Information Systems at DePaul University in Chicago, in an interview. “The question is how much of a multiplier would you get off of reducing military spending.”
Stevens says it is important to consider the ‘opportunity cost’ of military spending compared to spending in another sector, such as education. He says at DePaul University, the annual budget is approximately $500 million for a student population of 26,000.
“When you look at the budget, where do you get the bigger bang for your buck?” Stevens said.
Military spending has increased quickly over the years. With its spike after 9/11, this number has grown steadily. According to data from the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, the defense budget grew from $432 billion in 2001 to $720 billion in 2011, an increase of approximately 67 percent.
The New York Times reported in an article Wednesday that a group of budget experts and politicians called for a reduction in military spending to help with the budget deficit. The plan proposed includes a five-year freeze on Pentagon spending and was led by former Senator Pete V. Domenici of New Mexico and former budget director Alice M. Rivlin.
Some think that this surge was caused by a lack of direction.
“We started with the US entry into Iraq and Afghanistan,” said Olson, who focuses on weapons proliferation, military spending and global security. “As years have gone on, we lost focus. We have lost a sense of what direction we are getting into. We are trying to prepare for wars, any potential wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. At the same time, we are preparing for large scale conventional wars, like the world wars. We are all over the board.”
