The American Legion Magazine | 2.1.18
By Alan W. Dowd
The Budget Control Act
of 2011 (BCA) aimed to address the deficit crisis spawned by both the Great
Recession and Washington’s efforts to contain it. Those efforts, spanning the
end of the Bush administration and beginning of the Obama administration,
mushroomed federal spending from $2.98 trillion in 2008 to $3.72 trillion by
2010[i]—a
25-percent spike in just two years. Washington’s spending binge—along with diminished
federal tax hauls due to the recession—spawned a record-setting $1.4-trillion
deficit in 2009.[ii]In fact, between 2009 and 2012, the deficit surpassed $1 trillion each year.[iii]
As a goad to action,
the BCA included a trigger for across-the-board cuts of $1 trillion—spread over
several years and divided between defense and certain
domestic programs—in the event that a special House-Senate committee failed
to meet a deficit-reduction goal of $1.2 trillion.[iv]As Defense Secretary James Mattis observes,
sequestration was “a
mechanism meant to be so injurious to the military it would never go into
effect.”
But the committee’s
members couldn’t agree on how to reduce the deficit—tax increases, spending
reductions, a little of both, a lot of both—and the automatic cuts known as
sequestration kicked in.[v]
Did sequestration work?
To answer that question, let’s do a cost-benefit analysis on the Budget Control
Act—a CBA on the BCA.
Pluses
On the plus side of the
ledger, the BCA slowed spending and
bent the deficit downward from its stratospheric Great Recession heights: The
deficit fell from $1.3 trillion in 2011 to $438 billion in 2015, and the
deficit declined from 9.8 percent of GDP in 2009—the largest share since
1945—to 2.4 percent of GDP in 2015.
However, the deficit began to creep upward in
2016, jumping to $584 billion—3.1 percent of GDP.[vi]And the national debt, which represented 82 percent of GDP in 2009, hit 104
percent of GDP by 2016.[vii] In fact, the national debt has grown
34 percent since passage of the BCA.[viii]
“By all
measures the BCA has failed,” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) concludes. “A law
intended to reduce federal spending has cut defense and other discretionary
budgets for five years without decreasing the federal debt.”
Rep. Adam Smith
(D-Wash.) agrees. He introduced a bill in 2017 that concludes, “Sequestration
was designed as a forcing mechanism for an agreement on a comprehensive,
deficit reduction plan. It has failed to produce the intended results.”[ix]
Whatever the fiscal benefits of the BCA, they
came at an enormous cost to the U.S. military. Even before the sequester guillotine fell, the Pentagon
had cut $487 billion from projected spending, which means the Pentagon would
lose nearly $1 trillion in expected resources by the time sequestration had run
its course.[x]
Yes,
Congress provided Band-Aid spending patches from time to time, and
war-operations funding was protected from sequestration. But readiness, training, modernization, maintenance, weapons
development and acquisition, and overall deterrent military strength all
suffered because of sequestration.
“I can find nothing in the
Budget Control Act,” Mattis recently told Congress, “that helps our national
security.”[xi]
Minuses
Halfway through the sequestration ordeal, the results are not
for the faint of heart.
Thanks in
large part to sequestration, “Today’s Air Force is the smallest and oldest it
has ever been,” an Air Force report to Congress grimly concludes.[xii]
In 2011, the U.S. Air Force (USAF) had 333,370 active-duty airmen. By 2017,
that number had fallen to 310,000.[xiii]
In 2011, active-duty aircrews were flying 17.7 hours per
crew per month; by 2016, that number had been slashed to just 13.2 hours per month.[xiv]
In 2013, USAF stood down 31 squadrons—including 13 combat-coded squadrons—due to sequestration’s funding constraints.[xv]
Pressed by sequestration, USAF announced in 2014 plans to eliminate 500 planes
from its inventory.[xvi]
USAF commanders reported in March 2017 that they would likely
run out of money to pay pilots to fly the last six weeks of FY2017. Military.com
adds that USAF is making do with “half-size squadrons.”[xvii]
As to the age
of today’s Air Force: The B-2 entered service in 1993, the B-1B in 1986, the
AWACS in 1977, the F-15 and A-10 in 1976, the KC-135 in 1957, the B-52 in 1955.[xviii]
“The U.S.
has not developed a new heavy bomber in three decades,” the Lexington Institute
points out.[xix]Initial operational capability of the yet-to-be-built B-21 will not come until
2025. Between now and then, just 12 percent of America’s aging bomber fleet
will be able to penetrate and survive enemy air defenses.[xx]
In 2011, the Army’s active-duty endstrength was 566,000; by 2016,
it had fallen to 476,000.[xxi]The Army’s active-duty force was
480,000 before 9/11. In other words, sequestration left America with a smaller
Army in a time of war than it fielded in a time of peace. As then-Army Chief of
Staff Gen. Ray Odierno remarked in 2013, “Throughout our nation’s history, the
United States has drawn down military forces at the close of every war. This
time, however, we are drawing down our Army not only before a war is over, but
at a time where unprecedented uncertainty remains in the international security
environment.”[xxii]
Only 25
percent of the Army’s combat aviation brigades are ready to deploy. Worse, of the Army’s 58 brigade combat teams,
“Only three could be called upon to fight tonight in the event of a crisis,” reports
Gen. Daniel Allyn, Vice Chief of Staff of the Army.[xxiii]
As we enter
an era marked by renewed great-power rivalry, the United States needs more of
the Army’s unique deterrent capabilities—not less. Indeed, given the demands in Korea, Afghanistan, Iraq and
Eastern Europe, it’s no surprise Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley
wants an active-duty force of 540,000-550,000 soldiers.[xxiv]
Before sequestration, the Marine Corps fielded 202,100
active-duty personnel; by the end of 2016, there were only 184,000 Marines on
active duty.[xxv]
In 2014, half
of the Marines’ fixed-wing fighters were grounded due to sequestration.[xxvi]By the end of 2016, only 41 percent
of Marine aircraft were able to fly. About one-fourth—just 72 planes—of Marine
Corps F/A-18s were able to fly by the end of 2016.[xxvii]“Approximately
80 percent of our aviation units lack the minimum number of ready basic
aircraft for training, and we are significantly short ready aircraft for
wartime requirements,” according to Gen. Glenn Walters, Assistant Commandant of
the Marine Corps.[xxviii]
The
situation is so dire that, incredibly, Marine aviation units have been reduced
to salvaging aircraft parts from museums to keep planes flying.[xxix]
All told, 62 percent of non-deployed Marine units “are missing some kind of necessary
equipment,” Military Times reports.[xxx]
At the
height of President Ronald Reagan’s rebuild, the Navy boasted 594 ships. Today’s Navy has only 277 active deployable ships. These
numbers aren’t even close to America’s maritime needs. “For us to meet what
combatant commanders request,” according to former CNO Adm.
Jonathan Greenert, “we need a Navy of 450 ships.”[xxxi] A
government-funded study concludes the U.S. needs 14 aircraft carriers (the Navy
has 10 operational), 160 cruisers
and destroyers (the Navy has 84),
and 72 attack submarines (the Navy has 52).[xxxii]
Fifty-three percent of Navy aircraft cannot
fly. As DefenseNews reports, this is
twice the historic average.[xxxiii]
These
shortfalls have real-world implications: When
the Obama administration ordered warplanes from the USS George H.W. Bush to blunt the ISIS blitzkrieg in 2014, Greenert
admitted that “they stopped their sorties” over Afghanistan to do so.
Similarly, the Trump administration’s apparent sleight-of-hand with the USS Carl Vinson during the North Korea
crisis in spring 2017—trying to make one carrier do the work of two—suggests
the U.S. doesn’t have the carrier firepower it needs to dissuade foes, reassure
allies and stabilize hotspots.[xxxiv]
While
today’s Navy may be more ambidextrous than its forerunners, deterrence is about
presence. And the sequestration-era Navy lacks the assets to be present in all
the places it’s needed.
Resources
Perhaps the biggest cost of sequestration is the message it sent to our troops,
who were made to feel like liabilities that need to be cut down to size rather than precious resources that need
to be to nurtured. Their equipment got older; their numbers and assets grew smaller;
their deployments became longer and more frequent; and their training and
operations became more dangerous. Surely, the rash of deadly mid-air and at-sea
mishaps is a byproduct of sequestration. “On-duty accidents,” notes
AEI’s Mackenzie Eaglen, “have been the biggest killer of American
servicemembers since 2014”—not ISIS, al Qaeda or the Taliban.[xxxv]
Add it all up, and sequestration has
had a devastating impact. By shrinking the reach, role and resources of
the Armed Forces, sequestration has caused long-term damage to both the military
and the nation it defends. But don’t take my word for it.
“No
enemy in the field has done more to harm the readiness of our military than
sequestration,” according to Mattis.[xxxvi]
“We have
lost our advantage in key warfighting areas,” adds Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen.
James Dunford. He warns that “without sustained, sufficient and predictable
funding…we will lose our ability to project power.”[xxxvii]
Speaking of
funding, the Pentagon is not to blame for the budget-deficit mess. Washington
could have eliminated the entire defense budget in 2012—$662 billion that
year—and turned the Pentagon into a mega-mall, and we would still have faced a
budget deficit of $700 billion.
The
Pentagon accounts for just 17 percent of federal spending. Yet it was ordered
to cough up half the budget savings mandated by sequestration, which led Sen.
Angus King (I-Maine) to point out something too many policymakers fail to
grasp: “The growth in the budget right now is in mandatory programs and
particularly in health care costs, Medicare, Medicaid, the children’s health
program. That is what is driving the federal deficit. It is not defense.”[xxxviii]
Indeed, as
David Adesnik of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies details, Medicare, Medicaid
and Social Security now account for 48 percent of the federal budget (up from
40 percent in 2009 and 26 percent in 1974), while the Pentagon represents just 17
percent of federal spending (whittled down from 21 percent in 2009 and 30
percent in 1974).[xxxix]
Perspective
The costs of sequestration wouldn’t be all that
worrisome if the world was at peace; if China wasn’t asserting control over
international airspace and waterways; if Russia wasn’t reincorporating parts of
the former Soviet Union, threatening NATO allies and reasserting itself in the
Middle East; if North Korea wasn’t testing nukes and long-range missiles; if
Iran wasn’t ambushing U.S. warships; if ISIS, al Qaeda and the Taliban weren’t waging
war on civilization; if Russia and China weren’t building up their militaries. Russia’s military outlays have mushroomed
by 125 percent since 2006,[xl]China’s by 150.9 percent since
2008.[xli]
These disparate
threats explain why President Donald Trump issued an executive order upon
entering office pledging “to rebuild the U.S. Armed Forces” and directing
the Pentagon to determine funding levels “necessary to improve readiness
conditions and address risks to
national security.”[xlii]He then unveiled a $639-billion defense budget for 2018 ($574.5 billion in
baseline funding plus $64.6 billion in special war funding)—well above the
BCA’s sequester limits.[xliii]He has vowed to increase the active-duty Army to 540,000 soldiers, deploy a
350-ship Navy, field 36 Marine battalions and equip the Air Force with 1,200
fighter aircraft.[xliv]
Congressional
leaders have proposed even larger defense budgets, some as high as $705 billion
(baseline and war-operations funding).[xlv]But one budget cycle is not enough to repair the self-inflicted wounds of
sequestration. “It took us years to get into this situation,” Mattis explains.
“It will require years of stable budgets and increased funding to get out of
it.”
McCain calls
for a baseline defense budget of $662.3 billion in 2019, $686.5 billion in
2020, $720.9 billion in 2021 and $740.5 billion in 2022.[xlvi]That may sound like a lot of money—after all, $686.5 billion would equal 17.1
percent of a $4-trillion federal budget and 3.6 percent of a $19-trillion GDP—but
to put those numbers into perspective, consider these comparisons:
·
In
1943 (World War II), the U.S. devoted 84.9 percent of federal outlays and 37
percent of GDP to defense.
·
In
1953 (Korean War), the U.S. committed 69 percent of federal outlays and 14
percent of GDP to defense.
·
In
1968 (Vietnam War), the U.S. invested 46 percent of federal spending and 9
percent of GDP in defense.
·
In
1984 (the Cold War’s pivotal final act), the U.S. spent 26.7 percent of federal
outlays and 5.9 percent of GDP on defense.[xlvii]
Today,
Washington is, in effect, asking America’s military to execute all these missions—to
wage a global war on terror, fight open-ended regional battles and prosecute
Cold War 2.0—all at once. Yet according to the Congressional Research Service,
“Federal outlays devoted to defense programs have fallen as a share of GDP in
every year since enactment of the BCA.” In 2011, defense outlays were 4.5
percent of GDP; by 2016, they had shrunk to 3.1 percent.[xlviii]
Costly
Savings
As the bipartisan gamble known as sequestration began to take its toll, Henry
Kissinger identified the crux of the problem confronting Washington—and created
by Washington—in this age of declining national-security spending and mushrooming
national-security threats: The United States needs “a strategy-driven budget,”
the dean of American statecraft explained, “not budget-driven strategy.”[xlix]
A strategy-driven defense budget, by definition, would define America’s strategic
interests and build a military to defend those interests. A budget-driven
strategy, on the other hand, puts spending priorities ahead of strategic
interests and national-security needs.
Despite all its
supposed savings, budget-driven strategy is costly—as we’ve learned in the wake
of sequestration.
[i] Office of
Management and Budget, Summary of Receipts, Outlays and Surpluses or Deficits,
1789-2015.
[ii]https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFSD
[iii]http://online.wsj.com/articles/u-s-budget-deficit-in-2014-narrows-to-lowest-level-in-six-years-1413385493
[iv]https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/02/20/the-sequester-absolutely-everything-you-could-possibly-need-to-know-in-one-faq/?utm_term=.e0339b431fac
and
https://www.cbpp.org/research/how-the-across-the-board-cuts-in-the-budget-control-act-will-work
[v]https://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/story/2011-11-21/US-Debt-Supercommittee/51337976/1
[vi]https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFSGDA188S and https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFSD
[vii]https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEGDQ188S and https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GDPC1https://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/debt/current https://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo5.htm
[viii]http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/debt/current; http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo5.htm
[ix]https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R44039.pdf
[x]http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-fiscal-defense-idUSBRE9390QU20130410
[xi]https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R44039.pdf
[xii]http://www.airforcemag.com/testimony/Documents/2015/March%202015/031815james.pdf
[xiii]http://www.military.com/air-forcehttp://secure.afa.org/joinafa/AFMag0516/files/downloads/attachments/0516fullissue.pdf
[xiv]http://secure.afa.org/joinafa/AFMag0516/files/downloads/attachments/0516fullissue.pdf
[xv]https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Welsh_11-07-13.pdf
[xvi]https://www.stripes.com/news/air-force-to-eliminate-nearly-500-aircraft-in-25-states-d-c-and-overseas-1.272304#.WacMNsiGNPY
[xvii]http://www.military.com/daily-news/2016/09/22/house-panel-1-trillion-needed-to-reboot-military.htmlhttp://www.washingtonexaminer.com/general-air-force-might-have-to-stop-flying-for-six-weeks/article/2618825
[xviii]http://secure.afa.org/joinafa/AFMag0516/mobile/index.html#p=38
[xix]http://www.lexingtoninstitute.org/america-needs-to-develop-a-new-bomber-now/
[xx]http://docs.house.gov/meetings/AS/AS28/20160301/104353/HHRG-114-AS28-Wstate-BunchA-20160301.pdf
[xxi]http://index.heritage.org/military/2017/assessments/us-military-power/u-s-army/https://www.army.mil/standto/2017-03-20
[xxii]https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-113shrg88640/pdf/CHRG-113shrg88640.pdf
[xxiii]https://www.army.mil/article/181959/funding_for_readiness_needed_to_match_troop_levels_says_vice_chief and http://docs.house.gov/meetings/AS/AS00/20170207/105530/HHRG-115-AS00-Wstate-AllynD-20170207.pdf
[xxiv]http://thehill.com/policy/defense/336812-army-chief-recommends-more-troops-in-afghanistan-but-unsure-on-korea
[xxv]http://index.heritage.org/military/2017/assessments/us-military-power/u-s-marine-corps/
[xxvi]https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2014/03/27/realcleardefense_morning_recon_107154.html
[xxvii]http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/your-marine-corps/2017/02/08/more-than-half-of-all-marine-aircraft-unflyable-in-december/
[xxviii]http://docs.house.gov/meetings/AS/AS00/20170207/105530/HHRG-115-AS00-Bio-WaltersG-20170207.pdf
[xxix]http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/a20134/marines-had-to-scrounge-for-f-a-18-parts-at-a-museum/
[xxx]https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2014/03/27/realcleardefense_morning_recon_107154.html
[xxxi]http://www.military.com/daily-news/2014/03/12/cno-tells-congress-the-us-needs-450-ship-navy.html
[xxxii]http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-ships/a25555/trump-12-aircraft-carriers-biggest-navy-ever/
and
http://breakingdefense.com/2017/02/414-ships-no-lcs-mitres-alternative-navy/
[xxxiii]http://www.defensenews.com/naval/2017/02/06/grounded-nearly-two-thirds-of-us-navys-strike-fighters-cant-fly/
[xxxiv]https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/04/18/the-white-houses-misleading-statements-about-trumps-armada-heading-to-north-korea/?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_nkorea-840am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.5cdf11bf8f0e
[xxxv]https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2017/08/31/defense_budget_crs_impact_on_military_readiness_112202.html?utm_source=RC+Defense+Morning+Recon&utm_campaign=66317c237a-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_08_31&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_694f73a8dc-66317c237a-81835633 and https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2017/09/07/americas_new_deadliest_war_is_hiding_in_plain_sight_112244.html?utm_source=RC+Defense+Morning+Recon&utm_campaign=8306d9cf20-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_09_06&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_694f73a8dc-8306d9cf20-81835633
[xxxvi]https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Mattis_06-13-17.pdf
[xxxvii]https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Dunford_06-13-17.pdf
[xxxviii]https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/15-04%20-%201-28-15.pdf
[xxxix] http://www.foreignpolicyi.org/content/fpi-bulletin-defense-spending-does-not-drive-deficit
[xl]http://www.dia.mil/Portals/27/Documents/News/Military%20Power%20Publications/Russia%20Military%20Power%20Report%202017.pdf
[xli]http://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-parliament-defence-idUSKBN16D0FF and https://chinapower.csis.org/military-spending/ and http://www.dia.mil/Portals/27/Documents/News/Military%20Power%20Publications/Russia%20Military%20Power%20Report%202017.pdf
[xlii]https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/01/27/presidential-memorandum-rebuilding-us-armed-forces
[xliii]https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-03-16/how-big-trump-s-10-percent-defense-increase-it-s-three-times-canada-s-annual
[xliv]https://web.archive.org/web/20170101080611/https://www.donaldjtrump.com/policies/national-defense/
[xlv]http://www.defensenews.com/congress/2017/06/23/house-armed-services-moving-ahead-with-640b-top-line/
[xlvi]https://www.mccain.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/25bff0ec-481e-466a-843f-68ba5619e6d8/restoring-american-power-7.pdf
[xlvii] OMB, Historical
Tables Budget of the U.S. Government, 2014, pp.50-59.
[xlviii]https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R44039.pdf
[xlix]https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Kissinger_01-29-15.pdf