Right now, the lame-duck House of Representatives is poised to assent to a massive tax deal that will gouge federal receipts to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars. Understandably, the debate over the revenue side of the federal budget is the main focus.
But why not address spending at the same time? If taxes are the sole focus of the current debate, the party known for relentlessly opposing all forms of taxation will easily claim the populist upper hand.
I'm convinced that on the spending side, there may be a clearer path through the political minefield of budget cuts than conventional wisdom suggests.
Let's start by asking if anyone disagrees the following statements:
- The Defense budget is a bloated monstrosity of boondoggles shaped primarily by political favoritism;
- Military personnel are underpaid with respect to their qualifications, work ethic and employment conditions.
Good so far? Let's look at some numbers. In 2010, Defense expenditures will total $719 billion. Of that, $154 billion went to military personnel, or 21%. This is not far from the $140 billion the Pentagon spends on procurement alone. The $283 billion spent on operations and maintenance dwarfs either number.
Wastful military spending is usually not that hard to find. Bases that no longer serve any conceivable strategic purpose, obsolete cold-war weapons systems, training and simulation for traditional combat scenarios that no longer exist, etc. Most of the time, the obstacle to cutting this wasteful spending is a lack of political will. Lockheed Martin knows where the authorization bill markups will come from and locates its production facilities accordingly. Buy off a few farm-belt Senators with high-paying jobs in their state and you get to keep your bloated contracts.
But what if the sound but politically unpopular defense cuts were coupled with military pay raises? A Private First Class risking life and limb in Iraq or Afganistan gets a base pay of $19,494 this year, and this after a decent (by civilan standards) 3.9% pay increase over 2009. If they make it to Corporal/specialist after 26 months in they get a whopping $27,516.
An across-the-board 10% pay increase for all military personnel would add cost $15 billion to the 2011 defense budget. Not chump change, but offsetting that would only require cutting 2% of the overall military budget. I don't believe it would be too difficult to justify cutting five times that amount from other DoD expenditures. So, drawing up a bill with both generous military pay raises and daring cuts to wasteful outlays would split the pro-military opposition. Of course, nothing suggests that Republicans would be willing to support such a measure because their goals are to oppose anything Democratic, enrich their campaign contributor friends and not care about soldiers.
But soldiers vote. They are large voting blocs in many critical house districts and small states. They see how much is spent on the weapons systems they maintain compared to what they're paid. A nice big'ol wedge issue might finally make them realize which party is actually on their side.