Defense Spending Soars, While President Continues to Aim at Domestic Programs

With Congress drafting its 2009 budget blueprint and President Bush already promising to veto appropriations bills that exceed his tight funding levels for domestic programs, you might think that domestic discretionary programs -- what Congress funds through the annual appropriations process, such as education, biomedical research, and transportation -- have "exploded" in costs in recent years, as some critics charge. The story is far different.

At the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, we compared the most recent federal budget during the Bush era (for fiscal 2008) with the last budget approved under President Clinton (the budget for fiscal 2001). (Our report is here.) We found three striking facts:

First, there has been a spending explosion, but it's come in defense-related programs, which have grown 27 times faster than domestic discretionary programs over the past seven years and four times faster than Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Defense-related programs have grown much faster than any other area of the budget.

Second, much of the defense increase is unrelated to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the overall "war on terror."

Third, domestic discretionary spending is actually shrinking as a share of the budget and as a share of the economy.

The numbers tell the story.

* Between 2001 and 2008, domestic discretionary programs fell from 18.4 percent of the budget to 14.7 percent. In other words, these programs are taking up a smaller share of the federal budget "pie."

* They also fell as a share of the economy, from 3.1 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2001 to 2.8 percent in 2008. In other words, these programs are taking up a smaller share of the nation's resources.

Spending on domestic discretionary programs did go up between 2001 and 2008, but only by an average of 0.3 percent per year, after adjusting for inflation and population growth. That's much slower than any other part of the budget.

The picture is very different for defense-related programs, which we defined as funding for the Defense Department and war spending as well as veterans' programs, homeland security, and international programs.

* Since 2001, funding for defense-related programs has jumped by 8 percent per year, after adjusting for inflation and population.

* Between 2001 and 2008, defense-related programs also rose dramatically as a share of the budget, from 21.7 percent to 29.2 percent.

* In addition, they rose from 3.6 percent of GDP to 5.6 percent. To put that increase in perspective, it will take more than two decades, from 2010 to the mid-2030s, for Social Security to grow by 2 percent of GDP; defense-related programs have grown by that much in just seven years.

Of course, a big reason for the big increase in defense-related spending is the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and other costs related to the war on terror. But that's only part of the story. Defense-related spending unrelated to terrorism has grown too, and at a stunning rate.

Excluding the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and the war on terror, defense and related spending grew by 39 percent over the 2001-2008 period as a whole, after adjusting for inflation -- much faster than the major entitlement programs and many times faster than domestic discretionary programs.

Put another way, defense-related spending not connected to terrorism went up by $170 billion between 2001 and 2008, even after adjusting for inflation.

To those who favor the wars and large Pentagon increases, the question should be put: If these very large increases in the regular defense budget and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were worthwhile, shouldn't they have been paid for? Instead, rather than raising the revenues needed to cover these costs, such as by raising taxes on those Americans best able to afford them, the president and his supporters enacted massive tax cuts, which they now insist on making permanent.

For 2009, the president's budget is much the same story. He proposes big further defense increases, along with about $20 billion in cuts in domestic discretionary programs below their 2008 level, adjusted for inflation. A broad range of services would be cut, some of which -- such as child care, environmental protection, and job training -- have already seen sizable cuts in recent years.

For example, the administration itself estimates that under the president's budget, 200,000 fewer low-income children would receive child care subsidies in 2009 than in 2007.

The Bush era has witnessed a gradual, multi-year squeeze in domestic discretionary programs coupled with large, sustained increases in defense-related spending -- as well as large tax cuts. While the United States faces serious budget problems that will take real fiscal discipline to address, our problems can't be blamed on an "explosion" in domestic discretionary spending, because there hasn't been one.

Robert Greenstein is Executive Director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Comments

[olda]

This is sad(so few comments} this is a really great post and the issue is about one of biggest problems the USA is facing, this needs to be on the front page more people need to read this this .wont make it to msm you can bank on it.

[swift goat pet for truth]

At 50% of the world's defense budget, one would think that the US military finance issues are not budgetary, but rather managerial.

And, gee, guess who the current manager is.

The (incompetent) "CEO President".

[dadw5boys]

THE USA PAID MORE IN INTEREST TO THE FEDERAL RESERVE THAN WAS SPEND ON THE WAR LAST YEAR.

THE USA CAN PRINT IT'S OWN MONEY, THANKS TO JOHN F. KENNDY.

PAY OFF THE FEDERAL RESERVE WITH SILVER CERTIFICATES AND GET OUR COUNTRY BACK FROM THE WOULD BE KINGS!!!!!!

[swift goat pet for truth]

The interestof the National Debt was the third largest single item of theFed Budget. The second was Defense Spending - all of it, except the wars. The wars are off budget.


The top item is Social Security. But SS is in surplus. Payments in are more than dispersions out.

[bluesnot]

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/edcut?bid=7&pid=295515

Apparently the missile defense program is the biggest, bloodsucking scam of all.

[Guitarsandmore]

Stop paying taxes. Quit your job. Do not support this war economy in any way shape or form.

Petition congress to cut off the funding for any and all wars. This is an outrage!

[Macready]

bush and cheney have been bleeding the country dry to pay for their illegal invasion of Iraq . .. the US was the collateral they used to fund war so that all their big corporation buddies could make profits and disappear to the Cayman Islands . .. impeachment and then to The Hague is where bush and cheney belong . . .

[Sundialsvc4]

I could quote again the prophetic words of General of the Army (and President) Dwight D. Eisenhower, but everybody knows those words already.

"Ike" was right.

When we read headlines about hundreds of billions of dollars being spent on a war, remember this ... for every dollar that is PAID by someone, that dollar is INCOME to someone else, who just might be the other-pocket of the person who paid it.

Our government, in other words, is perceived to have as its sole and complete duty the shoveling-out of manufactured money to a privileged few, and to the fifty states who have been put at a position of utter financial dependency upon the central Government.

The ghost of James Madison would not be pleased.

Nor would the ghost of "Ike" Eisenhower.

It's up to us, ladies and gentlemen, only us. Are we the "knowledgeable and vigilant citizenry" that Ike said we needed to be, or are we not?

"What do you want your country to be, IF it is to 'be?'" That's really the decision of about 320 million people who live here. I suggest that the less-than-­a-thousand who have been allowed to do this must be stopped, and stopped now.

[mamacat]

And how much of that "Defense" spending has gone into the hole in the desert that we call Iraq, and not on anything that we actually need, and that might make us safer?

Why is that Republicans are always complaining that we don't have the money to take care of our own country, but they are happy to bankrupt our country because they were so dumb that they invaded a third world country that was no threat to us? Hmmmm, looks like I just answered my own question.

[Novista]

As for taxes ... inflation is a hidden tax, but anyway ...

Treasury Dept. figures for 2006 --

* median income - 6.3 %

* over $200K - 22.8%

So maybe a question to ask here is, maybe the progressive tax rate is not progressive enough? Why should someone on a median income be a lot better off than someone at the poverty line?

[mamacat]

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the budget deficit for 2008 will exceed $350 billion, and that the debt will increase by over $600 billion.

Ending the war in Iraq should free up $150 to $200 billion per year.
Ending the Republican tax give-away to the richest Americans will restore about $200 billion to the government coffers, every year.

Thus, to balance the budget and restore the economy to a sound economic footing, we need to bring back a conservative monetary policy. To do that, we need to rid the nation of the neo-con controlled Republican party.

The Republican party is dedicated absolutely to economic and foreign policies that are destroying our country.

[Sundialsvc4]

Step one: stop laying the blame at the feet of straw men, like "The PARTY_NAME Party."

If you look at the actual Congressional Record, at the official Library of Congress web-site http://thomas.loc.gov, you will see the very-bitter truth that we have been repeatedly betrayed by Members of Congress wearing both colors.

[elderly]

We need to substantially cut the military budget related to arms systems we do not need.

We need to raise the marginal tax rates on the wealthiest 5% of our nation not just eliminate the bush tax cuts. Only by doing so can we bring any form of fiscal sanity to our economy.

[glitzqueen]

How is it possible that, in a supposed democracy, a populace overwhelmingly against what's being done can't get it stopped? Could it be that we're no longer living in a democracy?

[PacificGatePost]

glitzqueen,

Now that's the scariest comment on this post.

Time for more bloggers to shout.

[abbiehoffmansghost]

Step to the front of the line.

[BBackSoon]

Seems Ike was right.

[PierreLeClerke]

The Military Industrial Complex/Big Oil. Quick, who remembers Eisenhower's warning.

He called it the GREATEST danger!

The Bush Co. A wholly owed subsidiary.

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