Read the Report
Putting the Pork Out to Pasture:
Why We Must Preserve the Obama-Gates Defense Cuts, Spend
Tax Dollars More Wisely and Invest in America’s Future
A Special Report from USAction | TrueMajority.org | Common Cause
The Obama-Gates Military Budget Cuts Deserve Support
As President Obama stated in his Inaugural Address, “[t]he question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works … Where the answer is no, programs will end.” The President and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates made good on this promise when they proposed targeted military budget cuts that do away with several expensive weapons programs that are no longer needed or never worked in the first place.
Instead of spending billions of dollars on Cold War-era relics, the Obama-Gates defense budget calls for the kinds of weapons that are needed to fight modern wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and other foreseeable threats. By saving billions of dollars on weapons that the military does not use, we will free up dollars that can be invested in health care, education, deficit reduction, and other urgent priorities.
Not surprisingly, politicians who rely on defense contractors for campaign donations are pushing back on the Obama-Gates belt-tightening. Between now and September, as the military budget moves through Congress, we expect to see members putting wasteful, unnecessary pet projects back in the budget. Practicing old-style politics when the country is in crisis and at war is downright un-American.
President Obama and Secretary Gates are applying long-overdue common sense to the military budget. Their sensible budget cuts deserve the country’s support as we face an unprecedented economic crisis and new kinds of wars that require new kinds of weapons. As Americans, we must resist any attempt by Congress to put unnecessary spending and pork-barrel projects back into the military budget.
The Obama-Gates Budget Cuts Wasteful Spending, Frees Funding for Domestic Priorities
We must do whatever is necessary to ensure the safety of the American people, but, as President Obama has observed, we must reject the idea “that we need to waste billions of dollars to keep this nation secure.”1 He’s in good company - President Eisenhower, the former Supreme Allied Commander of World War II, said something quite similar: “I get tired of saying that defense is to be made an excuse for wasting dollars. I don’t think we should pay one cent for defense more than we have to.”2
As President Obama noted when he signed the Weapons System Acquisition Reforms Act, $295 billion of taxpayers’ money was wasted last year on cost overruns involving 95 defense programs.3 Cutting waste in the military budget would go a long way toward funding health care, education, Social Security, and other programs that Americans desperately need.
The Obama-Gates military cuts are targeted toward Cold War relics that are unnecessarily expensive, not needed for counterinsurgency operations, and have no role in modern warfare including:
F-22 RAPTOR FIGHTER JET
The Air Force itself no longer supports continued production of the F-22 fighter jet.4 As a New York Times’ editorial observed, “the F-22 is a cold war relic, designed for defense against the Soviet Union. It has never flown in combat, much less in the wars this country is actually fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.”5
We already have 187 F-22s available or on order, which is more than enough to address any threat or contingency. This particular plane is unduly expensive — each F-22 costs at least $339 million.6
Ending production of the F-22 will not affect jobs in any elected officials’ district. Workers now assigned to F-22 production can be re-assigned to building the Air Force’s new high performance jet, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. According to Defense Secretary Gates, current direct employment by the F-22 program is 24,000; meanwhile the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (also manufactured by Lockheed Martin) program currently employs 38,000. This number grows to 64,000 next year, and 82,000 in FY’11.
MISSILE DEFENSE
The Missile Defense program is one of the least justifiable military expenditures. The Pentagon has spent more than $150 billion on the program since President Reagan’s “Star Wars” speech, but we have been unable to make it work.7
The Obama-Gates budget would cut the Airborne Laser, which has long been of questionable efficacy. The Airborne Laser would operate by putting chemical lasers on top of modified Boeing 747s to strike missiles during the boost phase of missile flight. It has proven difficult to engineer this weapon. The Airborne Laser is also not practical because it would need to be flown near a missile launch site, making it easy for the enemy to shoot down before it could accomplish its mission.8 The Obama-Gates budget also correctly terminates the Multiple Kill Vehicle because of its technical challenges and the need to take a fresh look at the requirement.9
Rather than throwing good money after bad, the Obama-Gates budget provides funding for a research program to determine if Missile Defense is feasible. The proposed budget invests in promising anti-missile systems to defend against the types of missile threats that exist today, such as Aegis and THAAD, rather than those of a bygone era.10
DDG-1000 DESTROYERS
The DDG-1000 destroyer ship, designed to fight the Soviet Union, is another Cold War-era weapon that is out of date and ill-suited to modern threats. Its large size and heavy weapons are better suited to conventional warfare against a non-existent threatening superpower. The smaller, more nimble alternative, the DDG-51, is a better choice for the kinds of wars we are fighting today. Significantly, the Navy prefers the DDG-51 over the DDG-1000.11
The Obama-Gates budget includes funding for three DDG-1000 destroyers, the same amount that was ordered last year. The DDG-1000 is incredibly expensive , given that a less expensive, more efficient alternative exists. The first two DDG-1000 destroyers are expected to cost $5 billion each and additional ships will cost $3.6 billion each. Building two DDG-51 Arleigh Burke class destroyers — the class of destroyer currently in use - per year would cost less than building a single DDG-1000 per year.12
The DDG-1000 destroyer should be canceled, but at a minimum, Congress must resist any attempt to increase the number of these unnecessary weapons ships.
MANNED GROUND VEHICLE PORTION OF ARMY’S FUTURE COMBAT SYSTEM
The Obama-Gates budget also correctly targets parts of the Army’s Future Combat Systems program for cuts. The Future Combat System’s manned ground vehicles should be eliminated because their design makes them highly susceptible to improvised explosive devices (IEDs). They are too low to the ground, lack a V-shaped hull, and are lightly armored.13
These particular ground vehicles have become unworkable. They are now projected to weigh 20 tons more than initially planned, which means they will have to be transported by larger aircraft. As a result, it will be difficult to actually get these weapons to the isolated areas where fighting is taking place.14
There may be several aspects of the Future Combat System program that should be cut, but eliminating the manned ground vehicles is the right place to start.
C-17 CARGO PLANE
The Obama-Gates budget would end production of the C-17 cargo plane, which is used for airlift of troops and supplies, because as Secretary Gates has explained, with 205 currently available or on order, the military already has “more than necessary capacity” for airlift over the next 10 years.15 This program was scheduled to end in 2009, but was revived after intense lobbying by Boeing, the manufacturer of the C-17. In May, Congressional leaders from California and Missouri authorized $2.2 billion for eight more aircraft in a supplemental war funding bill.
Every family operating on a budget knows that you stop buying something when you already have enough of it. Congress must also follow this simple rule.
Congress Must Not Put Pork Back in the Military Budget
If a weapons system is outdated, no longer needed by commanders in the field, and does not defend against current threats, it should be abandoned. This common sense approach will free billions of dollars for health care reform, education, alternative energy, deficit reduction, and other priorities. It sounds like common sense, but key Congressional decision-makers are beholden to large defense contractors for campaign contributions and are already hard at work putting pet projects back into the military budget. If the past is any indication, the Obama Administration will face a tough fight to keep its defense budget intact.
For example, the 18 members of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense inserted more than $355 million in earmarks into the 2008 defense spending bill on behalf of their campaign contributors. Those contributors donated $1.3 million to members who sponsored their earmarks. And many of those same Congressmembers are already requesting new earmarks to those same contributors in the current budget.
Congressman John Murtha (D-PA), Chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, has been identified as the poster boy for pay to play politics, but he is hardly alone. Rep. Murtha inserted a total of $166.5 million worth of earmarks in the 2008 defense bill, $73.6 million of which was steered toward his biggest contributors. The defense contractors that benefited from those earmarks donated more than $300,000 to Rep. Murtha’s campaign or leadership PAC during 2008. A glance at Rep. Murtha’s records shows that before his committee had even begun considering the appropriations bill he had already submitted $27.5 million in earmarks just for those 2008 contributors.16
The two other highest-ranking Democrats on the subcommittee followed a similar pattern. In 2008, defense contractors contributed more than $260,000 to Rep. James Moran’s (D-VA) campaign and got a huge bang for their buck, $30 million in earmarks. Rep. Peter Visclosky (D-IN) received more than $200,000 in contributions from defense contractors and doled out $27 million in earmarks. Rep. Moran has requested $23.5 million in earmarks for some of those same contributors for the current budget,17 and Rep. Visclosky has not reported earmarks for these defense contractor contibutors yet during this budget cycle.18
Both sides of the aisle play the same game. In 2008, Rep. C.W. Bill Young(R-FL), the ranking minority member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, received more than $100,000 in contributions from defense contractors and provided $58.1 million in defense contracts. Rep. Young has set a fast pace for requesting earmarks to contributors in 2009, having already asked for $40.1 million for those donors.19 Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-KS) received $80,000 in contributions and earmarked $20.8 million worth of projects. Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA) delivered $28 million in earmarks while taking in $75,800. Rep. Tiahrt and Rep. Lewis are showing the same pattern so far in 2009, having already requested $24 million20 and $6 million21 respectively for their donors.
With the country facing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression and fighting two wars, it is time to end pork-barrel spending in the military budget. The Obama-Gates budget represents a fair and sensible way forward. The conduct of certain Congressional leaders represents the stale and dishonorable thinking of the past. Simply put, we can’t afford business as usual any longer.
Conclusion
It has taken almost 50 years, but finally, America has a president and a defense secretary committed to heeding President Eisenhower’s warning about wasteful spending in the military budget and defense contractors’ undue influence over Congress. President Obama and Secretary Gates have brought common sense to military spending, eliminating programs that no longer work and allocating resources to adapt to modern warfare. This fresh thinking will free up resources for other areas of the budget, such as health care, education, energy independence, deficit reduction, and other urgent needs. Americans must demand that Congress act responsibly and resist any attempt to put pork-barrel spending back into the military budget.
[1] “Obama Signs Bill to Cut Wasteful Defense Spending,” Associated Press, May 22, 2009.
[2] White House Press conference, Feb 18, 1960
[3] Remarks By The President At Signing Of The Weapons Systems Acquisition Reform Act, May 22, 2009
[4] Donley, Michael and Schwartz, Norman, “Moving Beyond the F-22”, Washington Post, April 13, 2009;
Page A15
[5] “We Don’t Need the F-22”, New York Times, June 19, 2009
[6] “A Unified Security Budget for the United States, FY 2009,” Foreign Policy in Focus of the Institute for
Policy Studies, September, 2008, p. 22
[7] Institute for Policy Studies, p. 23.
[8] Grotto, Andrew J.”Credible Missile Defenses Needed”
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/06/credible_missile_defenses...
[9] Secretary Gates’ Statement, April 6, 2009, at p. 5.
[10] Grotto, Andrew J. op. cit.
[11] Congressional Research Service, “Navy DDG-1000 and DDG-51 Destroyer Programs: Background, Oversight Issues, and Options for Congress”, June 4, 2009, p. 14
[12] Statement of Eric J. Labs, Senior Analyst, [on] The Navy’s Surface Combatant Programs before the Subcommittee on Seapower and Expeditionary Forces, Committee on Armed Services, U.S. House of Representatives, July 31, 2008, p. 1.
[13] Statement of Army Chief Gen. George Casey before the Committee on Armed Services, U.S. Senate, May 19, 2009, p. 11.
[14] Congressional Research Service, “The Army’s Future Combat System (FCS): Background and Issues for Congress”, April 28, 2005, p. 18
[15] Tiron, Roxana “ Gates defends dropping C-17 cargo plane”, The Hill, April 30, 2009
Note: Information on 2008 earmarks and contributions compiled by Common Cause in “Earmarks for Campaign Cash? Murtha, House Defense Appropriations Panel Members Channeled Millions in
Earmarks to Campaign Contributors in 2008”, with data from Taxpayers for Common Sense and
Center for Responsive Politics.
2008 Contributions include donations to the candidate and his or her leadership PAC during the 2007 - 2008 election cycle. The organizations themselves did not donate; the money came from the organization’s PAC, its individual members or employees or owners, and those individuals’ immediate families. Organization totals include subsidiaries and affiliates. Some earmarks are sponsored by more than one member.
[16] “Appropriations Fiscal Year 2010”, retrieved on July 10, 2009 from
http://www.murtha.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=64...
[17] “Appropriations Requests”, retrieved on July 10, 2009 from
http://moran.house.gov/appropriations_requests.shtml
[18] “Appropriations Requests”, retrieved on July 10, 2009 from http://www.house.gov/visclosky/fy10appropriations.shtml
[19] “Congressman Young’s Appropriations Initiatives” retrieved on July 10, 2009 from
http://www.house.gov/young/appropriations.html
[20] “Kansas Priority Projects” retrieved on July 10, 2009 from http://www.tiahrt.house.gov/?section-id=127§iontree=7,127
[21] “Congressman Lewis Posts Federal Spending Requests for Inland Empire Project on Website”
retrieved on July 10, 2009 from http://www.house.gov/jerrylewis/appropsfy2010.html
