Congress is Marching to the Wrong Tune on Pentagon Spending

Forbes

2 days ago

WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 11: Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) speaks to the press on the transparency from ... More the Department of Defense regarding the health of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on January 11, 2024 in Washington, DC. Secretary Austin was hospitalized for surgery relating to prostate cancer, which was not reported for several days. (Photo by Anna)
Critics of Trump administration policy have zeroed in on the President's plan to hold a military parade on his birthday, purportedly to honor the U.S. Army, at the same time that the administration and its allies in Congress are seeking deep cuts in veterans benefits and services.
If the administration truly wants to honor our men and women in uniform, it should spend whatever is needed to take care of them, and it should elevate stories of individual bravery and effort in defense of the nation and the Constitution. Instead, it has chosen to mount a costly spectacle that nods at our military personnel, past and present, while coming up empty when it comes to providing them with genuine support.
Many veterans have rejected the idea that the parade is even in their honor. As Naveed Shah, political director of the veteran-led organization Common Defnse has noted, 'As an Army veteran myself, I'm proud of the Army's birthday. But this parade seems like it's all about the president's ego rather than the troops who sacrifice everything in order to serve our country.'
But even as criticism of the parade grows, it is important that we don't take our eyes off of the Pentagon budget debate in Congress, which will be much more consequential in its impacts on veterans and non-veterans alike. As time winds down for Congress to finalize the budget for this year – nine months past the beginning of Fiscal Year 2025, which officially started on October 1st of last year – it appears to be marching towards a massive spending plan which is more likely to make America and its allies less safe than it is to bolster our security for the nextd generation, as Sen. Wicker and his colleagues seem to believe.
The House has already signed off on a $150 billion increase beyond what the Pentagon is likely to ask for over the next several years, a sum Senate Armed Services Committee chair Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) has called a 'generational investment' in defending America. But if any budget lines deserve a generational investment, they should be measures to combat climate change, prevent disease, curb inequality, and fund smart diplomacy and foreign economic assistance.
The drive to increase Pentagon spending is also questionable because of the way it is being promoted, via reconciliation. Reconciliation is a process for rushing a bill through Congress on an expedited basis, a process which undermines that notion of bipartisan debate and input that had been a model for handling Pentagon budget requests in past years.
Spending to address the major non-military challenges outlined above is not only insufficient relative to what is needed, but the House plan would seriously cut back existing, inadequate funding in these areas. If the House plan is adopted by the Senate, the result would be domestic and foreign policies that fund weapons and preparation for war while underinvesting in the pursuit of domestic strength and the maintenance of non-military tools of statecraft. The United States would be akin to a weight lifter who can lift prodigious amounts but is so bulked up they can't lift their hands above their heads or engage in routine physical activities. A successful foreign policy requires a range of tools, not just a large Pentagon budget and a global military footprint.
An overmilitarized budget is not the royal road to a more effective defense – it is a recipe for diminishing U.S. global influence while making conflict more likely. Hopefully criticism of the military parade and the parallel reductions in support for veterans will prompt the public to look at a larger question as well: does America really need a $1 trillion Pentagon budget to defend ourselves? And is there a solid plan on how to spend these huge sums? After the president's parade has come and gone, these questions will remain. How we answer them will have a generational impact, as Sen. Wicker has suggested, but it may not be he positive impact he envisions, but rather a weaker, more divided country that is undermining its strength at home in service of a misguided conception of how to address challenges abroad.