By Kate Brannen Published: 2 May 2011 19:27
To truly tackle the country's national debt, the United States will have to cut defense spending far more dramatically than what's called for in President Obama's deficit reduction plan, according to Democratic congressman Barney Frank.
Last month, Obama called for a $400 billion cut to security spending over 10 years.
With defense spending alone approaching $700 billion annually, with war costs included, the United States could afford to cut $200 billion a year, Frank, D-Mass., told a May 2 audience at the Center for American Progress. He did not specify over how many years such cuts should occur.
However, a task force chaired by Frank and Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, last summer recommended cutting defense spending by $1 trillion over 10 years, a position adopted by two other debt reduction panels.
Frank and Paul focused on defense spending because it accounts for more than half of the government's overall discretionary spending.
Spending cuts on this scale could be achieved by reducing the number of troops overall, but also by scaling back the U.S. military's global commitments, which Frank argues are out of date since the end of the Cold War.
For example, the time has come for the United State to re-examine the structure of NATO, which has become the means by which the United States subsidizes the military budgets of its European allies, Frank said.
When NATO was first conceived in the late 1940s, it was seen as a way to protect countries in Western and Central Europe from the Soviet Union. However, the geopolitical landscape has changed so much since then that "America is now overextended protecting wealthy allies against greatly reduced threats," Frank said.
The costs of this defense posture are evident in NATO's operations in Libya, where it appears that European countries do not have the capacity to carry out the mission without the strong support of the United States, the congressman said.
While the threat of terrorism needs to be addressed, it does not pose the same existential threat as the United States faced during the 50 years of the Cold War, he said. Defense spending should reflect these geopolitical changes, he argued.
Many of the weapons in the United States' arsenal were also designed to fight a Cold War enemy.
"I wish you could defeat terrorists with nuclear submarines, because we have lots and they have none - we'd win," Frank said.
However, it is difficult to take weapons away from the military services, Frank acknowledged.
Congress should avoid taking away money from programs that are already up and running, but "let's not come up with new ones we don't need," he said.
As for the parts of the defense budget devoted to military entitlement programs, Frank said, "I plan to duck that question at this time."
TRICARE, the military's health care program whose costs are growing faster than inflation, is an important issue to address, he said, but it should be dealt with separately as part of a larger discussion about the country's overall health care costs.
While avoiding the issue of TRICARE, Frank did say that veterans' benefits must be protected.
Cutting defense spending used to be a no-go zone for Democrats and Republicans alike, but Frank said he sees that changing on both sides of the political aisle.
"Military spending is no longer a free good; it's an expensive one," with growing opportunity costs, he said.
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