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Back MORE Fuzzy Math? Will Obama make significant cuts to the military budget? The answer to that question depends on what news source you rely on. If you go the Wall Street Journal you might be concerned that (a) “4% funding increase for the Pentagon trails the 6.7% overall rise in the 2010 budget -- and defense received almost nothing extra in the recent stimulus bill.” John Feffer, however, takes a different stance on the same statistic writing in Foreign Policy in Focus. “Today, the advocates of military Keynesianism are pushing back against the Obama stimulus package — which already includes over $10 billion for the Pentagon and $1 billion for nuclear programs at the Department of Energy — with a proposal to maintain U.S. military spending at 4% of GDP.”
The recent budget released by the Obama administration reflects this duality. The percentage of the Federal budget appropriated to the Pentagon for fiscal year 2009, not including supplemental monies for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, was $655 billion. In fiscal year 2010 Obama has asked for a total of $664 billion; including funding for Iraq and Afghanistan ($130 billion requested as a supplemental). Compared to the (under-) estimated $700 billion President Bush spent on the Pentagon, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it looks like President Obama is cutting the military budget by $36 billion. President Obama estimates that the cuts will be made up with his ‘withdrawal’ from Iraq and ‘smart cuts’; but, like his predecessor, he may be grossly underestimating the total cost of the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. He also is not cutting the military funding through nuclear weapons programs (Department of Energy) and non-Defense Department military costs. According to Travis Sharp at the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation, these costs totaled around $23 billion for FY 2009. What is clear to President Obama, the political pundits, and the American people is that our country cannot sustain uncontrolled federal spending during the global recession. Choices and cuts must be made. Obama has made a clear choice to fund domestic projects to stimulate our economy and provide basic human needs for Americans; but he has yet to sever the American relationship with the military-industrial complex. Soon reality will set in: President Obama will have to make a choice between swords and ploughshares. |
The issue becomes more complicated when we break the spending down further. President Obama made it clear during his campaign for the Presidency that the Pentagon was not immune to the economic crisis; alluding that major cuts to the military budget were in the works. At the same time he committed to increasing the personnel size of the Army and Marines; continuing the U.S. military presence in Iraq with residual combat forces; and, increasing the military presence in Afghanistan and Pakistan. 
