Social Spending Trumps Troops at Pentagon
by Eric V. Schlecht
National Taxpayers Union
October 2000

As the campaign to determine who will be our next Commander in Chief intensifies, the current level of defense spending and the state of our armed forces have become central issues. Governor George W. Bush asserts that years of insufficient funding, combined with a significant increase in deployments during the Clinton/Gore administration, has left our armed forces poorly trained, poorly equipped, and stretched too thin. Vice President Albert Gore Jr., meanwhile, claims that whatever minor funding problems may have existed are already being corrected by recent increases in military spending.

At first blush, the facts would seem to indicate that Governor Bush has a better understanding of the current situation facing the Pentagon. After all, testimony by the Joint Chiefs of Staff before the U.S. Senate demonstrates that serious problems in spare part supplies, weapons procurement, and readiness remain. Although both candidates trade charges about Pentagon funding levels, they ignore the possibility that funding allocation may also be a major factor in the Department’s troubles.

While many of America’s fighting men and women are forced to rely upon food stamps and other government assistance just to make ends meet; while the Defense Logistics Agency confronts dangerously low levels of spare parts; while weapons procurement lags as key systems grow older and older; and while many American troops remain inadequately trained; hundreds of millions of defense dollars are being spent on totally unrelated social programs.

It might seem odd – even disturbing – to the average American to learn that the Pentagon is funding social programs completely superfluous to securing the defense of our nation. After all, the Department of Defense (DoD) itself maintains that its mission is "to provide the military forces needed to deter war and to protect the security of the United States. Nothing less is acceptable to us, or to the American people."

Why, then, is DoD funding programs that are clearly unrelated to the nation’s defense? Surely no one in Washington believes that $2 million for the Bosque Redondo Memorial in New Mexico helps to provide the military forces needed to protect the security of the United States. That is $2 million that could be used to purchase the spare parts our armed forces desperately need, or that could go toward the funding of a badly needed new weapons system, or toward quality of life improvement for our soldiers. Unfortunately, this is not the only example of our defense dollars being used to fund constituent pork. Take a look at just a sample of what’s on tap for this year:

• $3 million for post-polio syndrome
• $6 million for coronary/prostate disease reversal
• $5 million for the Hawaii federal health care network
• $12 million for the ovarian cancer research program
• $175 million for breast cancer research
• $50 million for the overall peer review medical research program
• $3 million for historically black colleges and universities
• $2.5 million for marijuana eradication in Hawaii
• $7.5 million for national counter-drug support
• $115 million to remain available for transfer to other federal agencies

Whether one believes these programs are worthy of federal spending is irrelevant. A reasonable person would concede that none of them have anything to do with sufficiently funding our fighting forces. As an anonymous, high-ranking Pentagon official was recently quoted as asking, "when you have some troops on welfare, when you’re short of bombs and ammunition, when you can’t find enough pilots or spare parts for airplanes – why is any of the Pentagon’s budget spent on non-military related things?" Why indeed?

There are millions more in the defense budget that are being wasted. Congress is set to provide $15 million in Pentagon funds to "arms control technology" – a tool of diplomacy that should be paid for, if at all, through State Department funds. Meanwhile, Congress could grant the Joint Chiefs’ request for another round of obsolete military base closures, ending billions in needless spending.

Governor Bush should publicly announce that he would transfer all funds allocated to non-military programs within the Defense Department’s budget to address its current military spending needs. At the same time, he should ask Vice President Gore to explain why our fighting men and women are being denied needed resources in order to fund the Clinton Administration’s pet projects.

Its time for Washington to stop using the defense budget as a conduit to fund its politically popular pork-barrel spending and return these resources either to funding the men, women, and equipment that defend our great country or to the taxpayers. By simply requiring that every dime appropriated to the Department of Defense be allocated for militarily related spending, our nation’s defenses would be stronger and taxpayers better served.

Eric V. Schlecht is Director of Congressional Relations at the National Taxpayers Union (NTU), a non-profit, non-partisan organization founded in 1969 to work for lower taxes, less wasteful spending, and accountable government at all levels. He recently resigned his commission in the United States Army Reserve after serving as an artillery officer.