Just the (budget) facts

To continue a story I wrote on yesterday, there’s a bit of a seesaw battle going on between the Pentagon and the new administration on the size the Pentagon’s budget.  On the one hand, we have the Obama administration (including SecDef Gates) advocating more responsible spending; on the other, we have the individual services (represented by the Joint Chiefs) and Fox News, trying to irresponsibly lasso as much money as possible for the Pentagon.

If you’re interested in this stuff, you should take the time to read this entire report by Josh Rogin at CQ, but here are the highlights:

The Obama administration has given the Pentagon a $527 billion limit, excluding war costs, for its fiscal 2010 Defense budget, an Office of Management and Budget official said Monday. …

Some Pentagon officials and congressional conservatives are already trying to portray the OMB number as a cut by comparing it with a $584 billion draft budget request compiled last fall by the Joint Chiefs of Staff for fiscal 2010.

The $527 billion figure is “what the Bush people thought was the right number last February, and that’s the number we’re going with,” said the OMB official, who declined to be identified. “The Joint Chiefs did that to lay down a marker for the incoming administration that was unrealistic. It’s more of a wish list than anything else.” …

Defense budget experts have said the draft by the Joint Chiefs, which was never publicly released, was designed to pressure the Obama administration to drastically increase Defense spending or be forced to defend a reluctance to do so.

To recap: the Bush administration said that about $527b (PLUS the costs of Iraq and Afghanistan) was enough for the Pentagon just before leaving office; the Joint Chiefs go ahead and compile their everything-under-the-sun wish-list of bells, whistles, and whiz-bangs anyway, making a total of $584b; the Obama-led OMB says, “thanks, but no thanks… $527b - an 8 percent increase over FY09 - is quite enough”; Fox News and conservative Republicans, anxious to paint the Obama administration as “soft on defense,” charge that Obama is ordering a defense “cut” because the $527b Bush-approved limit is 10 percent less than what the JCS asked for.

Absolutely maddening.

The issue is not being “hard” or “soft” on defense, but “appropriate”.  The country is fighting two wars (which, to repeat, will be paid for above and beyond the $527b appropriated to the Pentagon) and is facing a major economic crisis.  The Obama administration has to start making difficult decisions about where to spend our money.

Even the Secretary of Defense knows this, saying to the Senate Armed Services Committee last month, ““I believe that the FY 2010 budget must make hard choices.”

It’s time to stop playing politics with billions of taxpayer bucks.