One of the reasons that Republicans and Democrats agreed to bypass the sequester’s spending restraints a year ago is that Republicans thought defense spending had been cut too much. And with the world in turmoil in the Middle East and the Russian bear on the prowl again, there will likely be a push for even more defense spending in 2015.
But if conservatives want to be good stewards of the budget, which should include the Defense Department, there’s at least four questions we need to consider.
1. How much are we spending on defense?
The very first question is how much taxpayers are currently spending on defense?
Fortunately, Mercatus Center economist extraordinaire Veronique de Rugy has recently published “Defense Spending Extends Beyond the Pentagon’s Budget.” She points out that in 2013 the Department of Defense budget was $503.2 billion. But then she adds in $82 billion in war spending, $25 billion for national defense, and some $250 billion for other related spending like Veteran Affairs, military retirement, health care and homeland security.
The total, she says, comes to $860.9 billion.
2. Is that enough—or too much?
The question is whether $861 billion is too little, too much, or just about right? It’s not an easy question.
Very few people actually know enough about the defense budget and the true cost of defending the country to make an educated assessment. Perhaps more importantly, many of those who do know often have an incentive to downplay spending if they are requesting more resources.
Virtually every government agency claims it is underfunded and needs more resources, decrying any budget cut as the worst possible calamity.
The complaints don’t just come from agency political appointees either; many politicians have a vested interest—such as a military base in their district—in opposing proposed budget cuts.
Of course, those who claim the U.S. should be spending more on defense could be right, but it’s very hard to know, because proponents of more defense spending usually sound and act like every other agency facing possible budget cuts.
3. Is the Defense Department more efficient than other government agencies?
Conservatives tend to cast a skeptical eye on every branch of government—except the military. There seems to be a sort of inherent support for those who wear our country’s uniform—including me—and that’s perfectly understandable.
Defending the country is one of the constitutionally enumerated powers. In addition, people who serve their country—in the military, police and sheriffs, fire departments, etc.—make a huge voluntary commitment and face significant risks for relatively little remuneration. Plus they undergo extensive training meant to turn them into professionals and weed out the questionables. So they deserve the benefit of the doubt.
But the Defense Department is a government agency with a huge bureaucracy, and it’s subject to all of the shortcomings of such agencies. Two examples:
-
In trying to create a new universal camouflage uniform, the military wasted an estimated $5 billion; and the Government Accountability Office estimated it might take another $4 billion to replace the one the military scraped.
-
The Department of Defense spent more than $1 billion over several years trying to create an interoperable computer system that would allow it to share veterans’ medical records with the VA. The DoD abandoned the failed attempt in 2013.
No one wants our soldiers having to ration bullets or being forced to cut corners, but virtually every federal agency wastes millions, and in some many cases billions, of taxpayers’ dollars.
Defense spending shouldn’t be above scrutiny.
4. Can defense spending be a threat to individual liberties?
There has been a growing scholarly and public debate over whether foreign military intervention has a “boomerang effect.” For example, economists Christopher J. Coyne and Abigail R. Hall suggest in a recent Independent Review article that foreign interventions “increase the scope of government activities domestically, resulting in a reduction of citizens’ liberties and freedoms.”
It’s not a far-fetched notion.
The military is part of the government. And even as we honor our soldiers for the job they do, conservatives should bring the same concern about government waste, inefficiency and overreach to the military that we do to every other government agency.