On August 13, President Donald Trump signed the 2019 defense budget, after it overwhelmingly passed both houses of Congress. The lofty $716 billion price tag was, predictably, even larger than last year’s $700 billion bill—a sum that, at the time, was more money than even the military-minded Trump requested.
In all, the 2019 U.S. budget totals roughly $4.4 trillion, of which about $2.7 trillion (61 percent) is considered “mandatory”—pre-designated to commitments including Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
Another $363 billion—more than $1,000 for every American—services the interest of our enormous national debt. That leaves about $1.3 trillion in discretionary spending. This is our “everything else” money: Education, infrastructure, research, housing, and agricultural subsidies.
It also includes defense, which eats up well over half of this “everything else.”
In 2016, our $611 billion budget was already more than the combined military budgets of the next eight countries.
At a time with urgent domestic priorities and mushrooming debt, our defense budget is indefensible. We simply can’t meet other needs—or curb runaway debt—without coming to our senses on defense spending.
Viewed through a global lens, our defense budget looks obscene. Two years and $100 billion ago, in 2016, our $611 billion budget was already more than the combined military budgets of the next eight countries: China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, India, France, the United Kingdom, Japan, and Germany.
Granted, America’s military does play a stabilizing role in some contexts, forming the bedrock of NATO’s mutual defense pledge, for example, and providing vital national security protections for non-nuclear allies like Japan and South Korea.
Still, our military budget is bloated. In 2016, the Pentagon hid $125 billion in bureaucratic waste from potential detractors. Another report found that some $58 billion has been wasted over the last two decades on weapons systems that didn’t pan out.
The U.S. military employs more than a million contractors, civilians, and uniformed personnel to support 1.3 million troops. Undoubtedly, there is massive redundancy here.
And the military spends $100 billion annually on weapons, despite being so overrun with unneeded equipment that, thanks to this spillover, many local police forces now resemble miniature armies. One South Carolina county even has an army tank and cargo planes.
Despite this, year after year, defense spending climbs with overwhelming bipartisan support; President Obama’s final defense budget, allocating $619 billion for Fiscal Year 2017, was no exception. The latest budget passed 359-49 in the House and 87-10 in the Senate.
This is little more than self-preservation by Congressional incumbents, with representatives fearing the dreaded “soft on defense” label. Constituent jobs funded by fat defense contracts or unnecessary military bases also add to the budgetary bloat.
While the spigot is open when it comes to spending on defense, other priorities are severely shortchanged. The White House’s requested 2019 education budget would cut 5 percent from current levels, despite chronic underfunding for public schools, whose reliance on local property taxes over federal revenue places students in low-income districts at stifling disadvantages.
Transportation spending also is decreasing, and it shows. According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, our failing roads, bridges, airports and other infrastructure will cost the country almost four trillion dollars in GDP over the next decade, and lead to 2.5 million fewer jobs—flying in the face of then-candidate Trump’s commitment to an “American economic revival.”
Transportation spending also is decreasing, and it shows.
And outlays for the Health and Human Services Department, which includes vital arms like the Food & Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, appears miniscule—less then $180 billion, despite its extensive purview—after the costs of Medicare and Medicaid are deducted.
Despite this shortchanging, our national debt now exceeds $21 trillion. Per the White House’s own figures, the annual budget deficit is likely to top $1 trillion in 2019.
Our profligate defense spending has become a self-inflicted wound administered by the double-edged sword of depleted federal programs and mounting national debt. The money to teach our children, mend our crumbling infrastructure, and save future generations from financial disaster must come from somewhere.
Yet the already ridiculous defense budget will continue to grow until the day—now hard to fathom—that members of Congress start serving their country instead of their reelection prospects.