The Downside of the Debt Deal Is a Weaker Military The already stretched armed forces will absorb a real cut after inflation.
The debt-ceiling bill passed the Senate on Thursday evening with 63 votes, though not before several Senators warned about its cuts to military spending. They have a point that will have to be addressed.
Republicans succeeded in reducing domestic discretionary spending, but the political price was agreeing to President Biden’s defense budget request of $886 billion for 2024 and $895 billion in 2025. That’s a 3% nominal increase in 2024, and it at least breaks the Democratic Party’s long-time demand that every defense dollar be matched with one for social welfare.
But Mr. Biden’s number is a real cut in defense after inflation. The deal means U.S. spending on the military could fall below 3% of the economy for the first time since the height of the post-Cold War peace dividend in the late 1990s.
No one thinks the world is more tranquil today than in 1999, as Vladimir Putin prosecutes the first European land war in 80 years. The Biden budget shrinks the U.S. Navy to 286 ships by 2025—as China ramps up to a 400-strong fleet designed to subdue Taiwan.
Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska noted that U.S. intelligence officials recently estimated China’s true defense budget in the ballpark of $700 billion, much larger than the sham statistics put out by the Communist Party. This means the U.S. is no longer the world’s singular financier of military power.
Sen. Roger Wicker (Miss.) argued that the U.S. may have 36 to 48 months—not decades—to prepare for when Xi Jinping “says he wants to be ready for a war against the United States—a war to take over the island of Taiwan.” Beijing could strike U.S. forces in Guam or Japan lest they intervene to stop an island assault.
Republicans can only expect so much in divided government, but Congress added tens of billions to Mr. Biden’s defense requests over the past two years. Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas noted that the difference between the budget deal and the 5% real annual growth the Pentagon needs is the rough equivalent of four Ford-class aircraft carriers or 90,000 of the Stinger missiles that have helped Ukraine against Russia.
The debt bill includes an automatic cut in spending if Congress fails to pass its 12 spending bills. This is supposed to force Congress to do its job and preclude an omnibus mega-bill. But Mr. Cotton is right to warn that Democrats may still take the Pentagon hostage “to extort even higher levels of welfare spending.” The risk is a return to the sequester politics of 2011 that ravaged military readiness.
Congress can improve this at the margins—for example, by fixing such bad Biden budget priorities as retiring hundreds of aircraft without replacements. Another option is a supplemental appropriation for Ukraine that rebuilds U.S. stocks of ammunition and missiles in multiyear contracts.
Congress could also pass a special appropriation for Taiwan, where war is still preventable. The island is waiting for weapons it has already purchased, such as Harpoon antiship missiles. That could include money for U.S. Navy submarines or a surge in antiship weapons.
A fair criticism is that the Pentagon could spend its money better. GOP Rep. Ken Calvert has been working on civil-service reform that could save billions, and another hero’s call is rationalizing inefficient military healthcare. Congress can break the culture that Defense Department grocery stores or subsidized canoe rentals on bases are inviolable.
But these projects save money only over time, and reform can’t overcome a Navy roughly half the size of the Cold War fleet. Much of the Pentagon’s spending goes for pay and benefits, and the only way to scrape up billions in a pinch is to raid accounts such as maintenance or flight hours. That’s why General Jim Mattis said “no enemy in the field” had hurt military readiness more than the 2011 sequester.
The worst part of the debt deal may be the message it sends to investors. Americans have recently learned that a brittle defense-industrial base isn’t prepared to surge weapons for contingencies like the war in Ukraine. Companies won’t pour investment into, say, expanding shipyards when Washington is announcing that defense spending is falling.
The moment is ripe for a Republican presidential candidate to explain these realities to voters. Speaker Kevin McCarthy drove the best bargain he could with Mr. Biden, and the deal is better than default. But the Speaker’s line that the deal “fully” funds national defense is wrong and makes it harder to tell Americans the truth, which is that the U.S. is drifting into a dangerous period with a vulnerable military.
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