Part of the 2011 Congressional debt reduction deal called for automatic cuts to social spending and military budgets over the next 10 years. The idea was that a deal to avoid these cuts would be struck, because Republicans wouldn’t want to cut the Pentagon, and Democrats would try to protect safety net programs.
That didn’t happen, so these so-called “sequestration” cuts are prompting some alarm bells in the corporate media—ringing loudly at the mere thought of cutting the military budget.
The New York Times (6/4/12) sounded the alarm today in a piece by Jonathan Weisman that framed things like this:
On January 2, national security is set to receive a heavy blow if Congress fails to intervene. That is when a 10-year, $600 billion, across-the-board spending cut is to hit the Pentagon, equal to roughly 8 percent of its current budget.
Wow, this isn’t even about the military budget—it’s the very security of our nation.
The piece is, as the headline suggests (“Some Lawmakers Look for Way Out as Defense Cuts Near”), written from the point of view of lawmakers who can’t stomach the idea of military cuts. The most important is Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham. But, the Times explains, he’s not the only one:
The dire warnings are not coming from Mr. Graham alone. They are coming at least as loudly from Leon E. Panetta, the secretary of defense.
So not only hawkish Republicans are worried about Pentagon cuts. So is, you know, the head of the Pentagon.
Weisman tries to give some sense of Graham’s strategy for putting off the military cuts:
Mr. Graham’s intention is to separate defense from the larger deficit issue by aiming his arguments high and low. The high argument is about American greatness.
“The debate on the debt is an opportunity to send the world a signal that we are going to remain the strongest military force in the world,” he said. “We’re saying, ‘We’re going to keep it, and we’re going to make it the No. 1 priority of a broke nation.'”
That might be the “high” argument, but it’s worth mentioning that, even with the cuts we’re talking about, the U.S. will be spending more on its military than anyone else. Enormously more. As in: more than the next 11 countries combined.
Pieces like this one often fail to include any budget context at all. This one actually does include such a perspective—but only so the reporter can try to rebut it himself:
On its face, the automatic cuts do not sound that bad. If they are put into effect, military spending would decline to its 2007 level, said Todd Harrison, a senior fellow for defense budget studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. But really it is worse than that. The law exempts war costs and allows the administration to wall off personnel levels and military pay, about a third of the Pentagon budget. That means everything else—operations and maintenance, research and development, procurement, fuel, military construction—would face immediate cuts as deep as 13 percent, Mr. Harrison said.
Follow that: The cuts would actually bring the Pentagon to 2007 funding levels, but it’s worse than that…because the cuts would be distributed unevenly. What?
I wrote a piece about this for Extra!, and this part of it includes all the information one needs to rebut this sky-is-falling reporting:
The proposed “draconian” cuts would force the Pentagon to make do with a budget equivalent to what it spent in 2007 (Project on Defense Alternatives, 10/11/11). Military analyst Winslow Wheeler (Center for Defense Information, 8/24/11) points out an annual base budget of this size—$472 billion—is $70 billion more than was spent in 2000, and would still constitute “more than twice the defense spending of China, Russia, Iran, Syria, Somalia, Cuba and any other potential adversary—combined.”
And the proposed cuts are often reported as raw numbers—$800 billion or $1 trillion in total cuts over the next decade. As economist Dean Baker has noted (CEPR, 8/4/11), coverage should explain that over this period the military is scheduled to spend close to $8 trillion.
Claims of catastrophic consequences from military cuts might also have been tempered by reminders that the Pentagon budget declined by close to 25 percent from 1989 to 1994—a historical context missing from most reports.
In other words, the cuts are real, but should be appreciated in the context of massive increases in military spending over the previous decade.
The other point of that Extra! piece: Stories worrying about supposedly debilitating cuts to military spending are a dime a dozen, and usually consist of getting Leon Panetta to complain about them publicly. But good luck finding many stories about what’s going to happen thanks to $600 billion in social spending cuts. Reporters don’t seem all that interested in that.
Austerity is never uniform
And never wears one
Without a social safety net America will be more like Somalia. The social consequences will not be avoided by hiding in gated communities. Only fair economic distribution can avoid a catastrophe.
Maybe it’s time to start having “B1 Bake Sales” for the military.
How they can even claim in order to stay No. 1, we have to spend more than the next 11 countries combined, I have no clue. I do believe it part and parcel of the MLM (Multi-level Marketers) mentality that “We don’t have understand or know anything, we just have to yell, moan and scream when our up-lines tell us”.
No one is looking at the reality, they are only looking at the fear for themselves, and one or two pieces of the puzzle (for which they lost the picture on the box years ago) and then screaming bloody murder like 1 year old teething. Reading the book “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds” about the Crusades and Peter the Hermit, and some of the leaders at the time, we can see a very similar mind set to the Crusaders of the day (in particular the First and Second). They only they cared about was ‘their salvation’, and because it was supposed to be ‘absolved’ through the participation in the crusades, they went bug nuts in committing acts of Cowardice and Stupidity that are legends today.
It’s becoming sadly clear that many people, are not worth the bit of DNA that their Daddys missed contributing during the days of ‘reading those naughty bit books’ and ended up spilling on the carpet.
The Pentagon security advocates are afraid of their own shadows.
They need to get a new perspective on security that can only be obtained by being exposed to the real security threats of unemployment, poverty, lack of access to health care, and crushing student debt.
They won’t get this experience by playing imaginary war games requiring ever larger weapon systems budgets against enemies whose terrifying power exists chiefly in their fear-inspired imaginations and in mathematical game models developed by the paranoid schizophrenic madmen of Rand Corp.
I actually think the whole thing is hysterically funny.As far as the military goes this has nothing to do with their needs,wants or requirements.It is strictly political.The government agreed that a certain amount of money must be cut from the budget(that would be the rights input).Step one i call it.Next they agreed that if they were not able to use any restraint whatsoever in spending -they would just take it out of the military(that was the lefts input) Step two i call it.Where it will be cut is irrelevant.This is what i think in washington is called working things out.This is what i call the Rs being stupid enough to deal with the left.They lost this one.The military will take the hit.When the deal was signed I said no way in hell the left will make any cuts.And I was right.Now we will see how this will effect the military.Hopefully it wont.Of course the left could care less.
The R s aren’t dealing with the Left, they are dealing with Conservative D’s and even so the mentality is to stop anything that would make Reaganesque Obama look good. So they will trash and crash us till they win and then the Republic will truly be dead. Then they can remake us into the kind of Holy American Empire they can be proud of as the new Crusades continue only even more violent, like their ancient counterparts, with a large dose of the Inquisition mentality and the “American Exceptionalism” that isn’t to help boost them to total world terror as they kill anyone they want, and anybody nearby, in the world at anytime. Michael-e understands, he evinces their mentality to a tee.
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Later the release says that the program depends on funding availability – ah well:-(
Sorry the Media Release intended to be included in my comment above, didnt show. Here it is:
“Hawaii, Air Force sign clean energy deal
MEDIA RELEASE
Lt. Gov. Brian Schatz and The Honorable Terry Yonkers, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Installations, Environment and Logistics signed a Memorandum of Understanding on June 7, 2012 in Washington, D.C. to develop alternative transportation fuel technologies for demonstration and evaluation at Joint Base Pearl Harbor Hickam”.
Our leaders have told us since before the Cold War began, that Russia would rule us and the world if we didn’t increase our defense spending. They then lied to us about the armament Russia already had and we spent the next 40 years making sure we were No.1. After the cold war ended, we were for certain “numero uno,” and that went to our head to the point that we invaded a soverign nation in a preemptive attack. During all this time, we were involved in a number of wars, only winning in minor skirmishes like Panama & Grenada…so I ask, WHAT THE HELL HAS BEING NUMBER ONE BOUGHT US? And now we are broke, divided, and still acting like we want more wars….I’ve had horses during a good portion of my life, and it doesn’t take them long before they learn their lessons.
why is it that we only seem to want to be # 1 when it comes to the military, not education, health care, arts and culture, etc!?
The problem is kind of along Ron Paul lines isn’t it?We (US)have a constitution that allows us the flexibility to lead freedom around the world in a moralistic sense.But after WW2 we found ourselves in the unenviable/enviable position of having the number one military, that has become the hired gun man for Us foreign policy.That benefits us first and foremost.And yes ….freedom loving people around the globe.Like James Bond we want the right things- but we sure as hell dance back and forth over the line of morality.This is an important debate for our national identity going forward. But lets not believe this is a cohesive understanding among all our leaders by any means.Far from it.A conspiracy toward US world domination.Clinton-Bush ,and Obama may of met in the middle due to facts on the ground and practicality.But every four years we are still able to change the paradigm.Mitt will I believe- be a very wary man about military interventionism.The cost now out ways our means.
By the way……along those lines I would think most people on these blogs would be in Ron Paul’s corner 100% as far as foreign policy goes.Politics does make strange bed fellows.
Has anyone, as yet, said anything about the final resting place of these dollars spent? You know, the military-industrial compost? The people who area actually part of the military and government employees don’t get the money: the people who sell us the tanks and bullets get the money. A big surprise, huh? This is always where the money has gone. Oh well, we’ve all been so brain-washed about some enemy or other “out there”, we can’t see the real enemy living next door, in our nearby corporate office buildings. Why do they keep needing more and more and more than last year? True, the prices of BMWs and Ferrari keep going up, but how many of one thing can you drive at the same time?
Growing up as a Navy dependent, “we” served in many countries during the 1950’s and 1960’s around the world on American military bases- including Franco’s fascist Spain. We children were raised to believe that Communism was evil and that America was fighting for Capitalism and the American way of life. Now in my 60’s I have lived long enough to see (and understand) that all forms of domination of one group by another are evil- whether by military or economic force (like capitalism).
What this all comes down to is very simple. The military cuts will affect military contractors primarily. They, of course, are screaming about this to their puppets (er, legislators) in Congress. Much like BigOil, the MIC has become untouchable, so once again, the general public will be made to suffer from (completely unnecessary) austerity measures.
Get your surfboards ready. Serfdom here we come.
I have read that according to the GAO, that the mlitary doesn’t ever submit a budget, nor do they ever seem to account for any of the money they get. How peculiar.
Since Congress doesn’t seem to understand this, let’s try something different. ALL of the states need money, so let’s divide the money that the military would get with the agreed upon cuts ( yes, Congress, you did agree to that sometime back if you did not reach agreement. You know, The SHARE THE PAIN PLAN. : )
Then , let each of the 50 states divide that money EQUALLY. That would create some money job action for the states and still get that military work done. It doesn’t even matter what they produce because apparently, states, even now, are producing things the military doesn’t want.It doesn’t seem fair to have only some states benefit from the military money. How undemocratic!
Or… we can watch each of the Congress people duke it out on the House and Senate floors. I think that party lines would disappear here as state winner takes all ! It’s a variation of THE HUNGER GAMES, but this time the ones at the top have to prove their worth! After being personallty pummeled, some might even come to the conclusion that war is personally painful and perhaps vote against any more military monies.
Perhaps my suggestions sound stupid, but I think no more stupid than what some of the nation’s politicians are already doing.
Well Gloriana the Pentagon does have a budget.Yes it is massive.Yes there is massive waste.Yes the Dems said if they cant cut the budget they would just take it out of the military’s hide.For some incomprehensible reason the Rs agreed to that.So there we are.As far as creating jobs with that money ..are we still believing that canard?We just spent enough money to paper the earth and not one job was created.In fact this whole idea of stealing from Peter to pay Paul is a liberal fantasy.We don’t need to reshuffle.We need to create new wealth.
michael e – The “incomprehensible reason” the R’s agreed to military cuts was because the D’s agreed to equal cuts in social spending. It’s called COMPROMISE. But now (and as usual), the R’s are trying to weasel their way out of that compromise. And once again, the spineless (and corporate-controlled) D’s will let them get away with it.
The “Debt Ceiling Debate” was nothing more than a dog-and-pony show to keep the masses divided and distracted while BigFinance/Corporate continues its power grab through privatization of everything public.
Still the cuts from the Dems will be the kind of cuts the Repubs wanted. It will hurt many people. I wonder how many will be saved from cuts in our military? Not much probably.
TD Actually you are wrong.The agreement was that a certain amount had to be cut from the budget.What you called social spending.There was a lot of pork both right and left in there, so the compromise was to equally work on those cuts.There was a failsafe built in…… If that was NOT accomplished …THEN the money would come out if the military.Well surprise surprise the politicians had trouble cutting out the goodies.Now the military is up to the chopping block.Hey that was the deal.
Debt ceiling.What a funny term to even argue about.My wife spends all her credits cards into a smoking pile of bills.Then we debate should I get her more to keep her habit- and us afloat?What in the hell does fiscal responsibility have to do with dividing the masses and helping big business?TD this was simply the government getting the OK to borrow ,print,and spend money over and beyond what they already have.Lets not put a pretty face on a pig ok?
No, michael e, the deal was that if the Super Committee couldn’t reach a compromise, automatic cuts would be made to BOTH the military AND social spending, Medicare/aid, specifically. Look it up.
The GOP’s use of the term “fiscal responsibility” is a joke. If they were truly interested in being fiscally responsible, they would have no problem raising revenue by eliminating tax loopholes, ending corporate welfare subsidies, and cutting the (extremely bloated) military budget. Don’t talk to me about “fiscal responsibility” until you’re willing to do those things!
The debt/deficit “crisis” is manufactured bullsh!t. There is no crisis. The Corporate/Finance elites created it (via their puppets in government and the lamestream media) for the sole purpose of being able to sell (completely unnecessary) austerity measures to the masses. Wake up!
the agreement was to split the spending cuts between “security” and “non-security” parts of the budget…not all on the defense side
There is no department of “defense”. The Orwellian cloud cover provided by that name briefly lifted up and even Americans could see our military might for what it is, when we were undefended on September 11, 2001.
Imagine if our Fire Departments didn’t have any plan in the event of a fire.
We have a Department of Devastating- littler- weaker- countries, – killing- their- civilians-and -setting- up- permanent- military- bases- when- we- can- get- away- with- it.
Im not telling you what the smoke and mirrors were in the agreement.Im telling you what it will if fact be.Military will have the real cuts.Ev erything else will be nickle and dimes.
TD After all this time you still dont know the time signature the GOP is dancing to.They are not trying to”raise revenue”by picking the bones of what is left of what is left.They want to create or I should say allow the creation of new revenue streams.The recreation of wealth.To simply redistribute,reshuffle,and re tax the moneys that be wont get the job done.you libs have to get off this idea that if only the rich give you a few more sheckles all will be well.You can cut the military,tax the rich and so on.Your not there and never will be.Pay for a few gov programs thats about it.
There is a theory that came forward in the late 19th century to explain all the many wars engaged in by the military powers of the time, mainly the German Army, a theory I believe in. It goes like this. Recruiting an excessive number of soldiers for a large standing army creates a need for greater amounts of equipment, and novel equipment, and all the other expenses for maintaining all these men and all this material.
Enter the generals. They have and always must have, a crazy level of paranoia and aggression and usually counsel combat. But, even more important, there is a general sense of expectation and curioisity, somewhat like a gaggle of teen-aged boys riding around the neighborhood looking for girls and drinking beer; they are always likely to say to themselves, expecially if it is a new car, or a racer: “OK, man, let’s open it up, let’s see how fast this f—- machine can go.”
The US never had a standing army before the end of the Korean War. Now it does have this. Let’s hope that it doesn’t mean that we have a basic change in govt. to the point where it slides into totalitarian practices because it can.