$33 Billion Increase for the Military: Mountain of Money, Molehill of Change
For immediate release: Wednesday, June 27, 2001
Contact: John Isaacs o (202) 543-4100 x.131 h (202) 387-6474
Washington, D.C. . .The Bush Administration formally released its new military budget of $343.5 billion for the military, a whopping $33 billion increase from the last fiscal year.
This total includes $328.9 billion for the Pentagon, with most of the rest allocated for Department of Energy military programs. Secretary Rumsfeld said that the budget provided the largest increase since the 1980’s, when the Cold War was still going strong.
The Bush Administration promised major reforms and initiated dozens of reviews covering every Pentagon program, but, according to John Isaacs, Council for a Livable World president, “Defense Secretary Rumsfeld has only discovered new ways to spend money.”
“Rumsfeld tackled the mountain that is the Pentagon budget; after five months of study, he has produced only a molehill of change.”
Not a single major Cold War weapon program will be terminated. The major accomplishment appears to be the retirement of 33 B-1 white elephants left over from the Reagan Administration.
Any weapons program cancellations will not take place until after October 2002 at the earliest. The $33 billion increase is more than twice the combined $12.8 billion defense budget totals of all the so-called “rogue states” - Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Cuba, Sudan and Syria - that has led to a feverish push for a national missile defense.
In fact, missile defense funding has received one of the largest increases in the budget, from $5.3 billion to $8.3 billion, a 57% increase.
“Throwing money at missile defense in order to carry out a campaign pledge to deploy as soon as possible is a dangerous waste of money,” argued Isaacs.
“Considering North Korea’s Gross Domestic Product is $14 billion, the U.S. could launch a hostile economic takeover of North Korea for two years of missile defense work,” added Isaacs.
Some of the money will be used to allow for deployment of a national missile defense in Alaska by fiscal 2004 or 2005. In one of the more positive elements of the new budget, the Administration has announced it will ask Congress to remove the restriction on reducing nuclear weapons, and plans to retire the MX missile and other nuclear weapons. The new Administration also has gone in for name-changing. The BRAC (Base Realignment and Closure) has now become the EFI (Efficient Facilities Initiative). Whatever the terminology, the Administration will prod Congress to permit further base closings.
In a sign of the dismal shape of the Pentagon’s accounting system, the new budget includes $100 million to straighten out its books. Senators Robert Byrd and Charles Grassley have charged that because of its shoddy bookkeeping, the Pentagon has little accurate information about what it is buying, what assets it holds and what it needs for the future.
“The $33 billion increase is based on a house of cards accounting system that means there is no way to tell if the money will be spent for the purpose for which it is slated,” concluded Isaacs
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