Dear Editor,
Several years ago, Congress approved a bipartisan agreement for an interim budget resulting from negotiations between Paul Ryan, Chairman of the Budget Committee of the House of Representatives and Patty Murray, Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. The main feature of this agreement was the elimination of some of the features of the sequester program which became effective in 2013 and cut expenditures for government programs across the board.
Ryan was willing to agree to the bipartisan plan because under sequester, there were automatic reductions in military expenditures. Patty Murray accepted the plan because it did away with sequester reductions in programs aimed at benefitting the poor and needy in the country, which the Republicans would like to see reduced.
Let’s look at military costs, which the Republicans always promote. First of all, the budget submitted by the Pentagon in 2010 represented slightly more than 20 percent of the total budget. In 2000 this budget was US $294 billion whereas in 2011 it was $710 billion. But when you added other additional military costs enacted by Congress, many involving local programs which benefit well connected constituents, military costs are closer to 50 percent of the total budget. Indeed, total military expenditures in the United States approximate the military budgets of all other countries.
I will focus on just one program enacted by Congress which the Pentagon said it did not need or want. This is the so-called “alternate engine” for the P-35 fighters manufactured by General Electric. The Pentagon already has engines for its new fighter manufactured by Pratt and Whitney. George Bush in 2006 and President Obama in 2009 asked Congress not to fund the alternate engine, but it refused to comply, and in 2011, GE charged $3 billion for its work on what is clearly a redundant and unnecessary military item.
This is just one of a number of Congressional handouts to companies for weapon systems, not wanted by the Pentagon but pushed primarily by Republicans who believe that you never can spend too much on the military, particularly if you help a wealthy constituent financially at the same time. These unnecessary corporate subsidies increase military spending significantly.
The other reason for the large deficit increase over the past ten years is the fact that the US began two unfunded wars (e.g. in 2011 the cost of the war in Afghanastan was $10 billion each month), but beyond that problem, tax revenues have greatly decreased during that period. The revenue in 2010 was the lowest it has been since 1950. This loss has resulted in large part as the result of tax reductions George Bush initiated in 2001 and 2003, which were meant to be temporary.
The Republicans, however, refuse to allow any increases in taxes, even including bringing taxes back to the level they were before those “temporary” reductions.
Increase military expenditures and obstruct any increase in tax revenue: Is this a sound and feasible policy?
Stephen A. Hopkins
