From 1999 to 2010 the Pentagon's managers squandered $1 Trillion. In the next ten years, it should be returned to the Treasury.
In 1998, the Pentagon budget was at a twenty three year low at $361 billion. For 2010, the DOD budget was $697 billion (all dollars in this piece are normalized to their 2010 value). According to the analysis of the Project on Defense Alternatives, between 1998 and 2010 Congress appropriated to the Pentagon $2.144 Trillion more than was anticipated by the 1999 "baseline." Of that amount, $1.113 Trillion was spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and $1.031 Trillion was added to "base" (non-war) Pentagon spending. (See this study, "An Undisciplined Defense: Understanding the $2 Trillion Surge in US Defense Spending".)
What did we get for that extra $1 Trillion? Basically, a smaller Navy and Air Force and a tiny increase in the size of the Army. As an extra bonus, the hardware those forces use is now older than it was in the Clinton administration in 1998.
How can that be?
Each year the Defense Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee publishes the size of the major components of the Army, Navy, and Air Force in its committee report for the Department of Defense Appropriations bills. The tables are not particularly user-friendly, but - for the most part - they are an apples to apples count of Army brigades, Navy ships, and Air Force squadrons.
In 1998, the Navy had 333 "battleforce" ships. In 2010 the Navy lays claim to 287 "battleforce" ships (a decline of 46 ships, or 14 percent).
In 1998, the active duty Air Force, plus the Air National Guard and the Air Force Reserve, had 108 squadrons of fighter and attack aircraft and long range, heavy bombers. In 2010 it had 72 of the same, a decline of 36 squadrons or 33 percent.
The Army is an exception, but the amount of increase is rather pathetic. In 1998, the Army tallied 10 divisions plus three independent regiments, calculating to 43 brigade combat team equivalents. In 2010, the Army tallied 1 division, plus 42 Heavy, Infantry, and Stryker brigades, making a total of 46 combat brigade equivalents. That's an increase of three brigade combat team equivalents, or 7 percent.
The cost of that Army "expansion" was considerable. Army appropriations in 1998 were $90.5 billion; in 2010, the non-war Army appropriation request was $140.3 billion. A 55 percent increase in money produced a 7 percent increase in the force.
The substantially smaller, much more expensive defense inventory is not - on average - newer and more high tech. It is older (in addition to being smaller). As the Congressional Budget Office has periodically assessed, not only have most parts of our hardware inventory grown older, the officially approved plan is mostly for that negative trend to continue.
Donald Rumsfeld (2001-2006) is generally acknowledged to be the most incompetent secretary of defense since - well - Donald Rumsfeld (1975-1977). Since 2006, his successor has come to seek some terminations in DOD acquisitions - most prominently the F-22 - and to transfer $102 billion from overhead (bloat) to "force structure" (hardware). However, the last two DOD reports on major hardware (known as Selected Acquisition Reports) show the number of major defense programs to have increased from 89 to 91, and the Government Accountability Office has measured the cost growth as now larger than even.
Finally, that $102 billion efficiency drive being pursued by Secretary Gates is over five years. The current Pentagon budget plan is to spend $3.245 Trillion over that period. In other words, the much touted Gates plan would shift from overhead to hardware just 3 percent of the planned spending. History shows this additional money for hardware will worsen our problems, not fix them, given how the money is being spent.
If the soft spoken Secretary Gates is to avoid the derision generally slung at the blustering Secretary Rumsfeld, the former will need to do more - a lot more - to evade a legacy of failure. Gates' highly effective soft spoken technique of overpowering Congress when he wants to and his mutually reinforcing relationship with President Obama will be seen by history as wasted assets if the secretary does not mobilize them for a far more pervasive program of real reform.
The right place to start is to adjust the Pentagon's spending plan for the next ten years to return that squandered $1 Trillion to the Treasury. A member of President Obama's Deficit Commission, Senator Tom Coburn, R-OK, has proposed just such a plan. Coburn also recommends the essential precursor to reform: forcing the Pentagon's hapless managers to understand the system they sit astride by requiring a comprehensive audit of all programs and components. (Find the Coburn plan here.) Only this kind of start will prompt the follow on reforms to help the Pentagon survive, even prosper, in the coming age of scarce money.
Some fine examples are Blackwater and Haliburton.
Haliburton would rather dump a $200,000 tractor in the pit than change a tire. The Army would change the tire.
Blackwater are mercenaries whose entire profits are from our military budget. And they really think they are the military but with no code of honor.
What the Pentagon owes us, since we provide thier budget, is an explanation and the names of those responsible for making our countrys service's look like those of the Old British Empire. (Anyone ever heard of the East India Trading Company and the Hessian Mercenaries?)
It did not work out as they planned for them and it won't for us if we continue.
ANyone think the middle east is better for US national interests today than in 2001? Didn't think so. All we accomplished was unchaining Iran at the US taxpayers expense.
Well, they tried to grab all the oil in Iraq, and they would have gotten away with it if it weren't for those meddling libs.
Morons
http://nbyslog.blogspot.com/2010/08/civil-service-redundancies-mandarins.html
"Given the requirement for a 14-4 minimum vote for any recommendation to come out of the Commission major cuts in defense acquisition were never likely to make the cut, the six Republican Congressional members should be enough to prevent anymore than tinkering on that front. Obama also named Republican David Cote, CEO of major defense contractor Honeywell, and he came up with an ingenious idea to have defense cuts while avoiding cancellation of current and future weapons program cuts: you just stick it to the troops.
A source familiar with the proceedings of the working group on discretionary spending tells TPM that some commissioners, including one military contractor, would prefer to save money by freezing military pay and scaling back benefits, rather than by eliminating waste in defense contracting.
According to the source, Cote and other members, including the commission's co-chair Alan Simpson, are focusing instead on "freezing military pay, making military people pay for their health care."
And all without taking a penny from the bottom line of Honeywell or Raytheon. But plenty of 'shared sacrifice' for the lower 98%.
http://www.angrybearblog.com/2010/08/everything-is-on-table-at-catfood.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2FHzoh+%28Angry+Bear%29
Do you know how much stuff in the DOD budget has NOTHING WHATEVER to do with DOD?
It is used for earmarks by everyone - as a vehicle for funding women's health issues, as a vehicle for funding small business, as a vehicle for funding historically minority colleges. Military procurement? Hell, it HAS to be done uneconomically because it HAS to be split up to satisfy Congress.
It's that way with MOST big ticket funding. Hell, it's that way with most LITTLE ticket funding. Amtrak advocates put money in their budget for every state - even Hawaii - to buy the votes needed to get the program passed. You saw the compromises made on health care 'reform' to get it to pass.
The problem isn't the military budget. The problem is the freaking budget process.
As usual, it's about $200 billion more than most reporting. .the real size is not, as many have reported, $515.4 billion—itself a staggering sum—but, rather, $713.1 billion.
Even the smaller figure of $515.4 billion—which does not include money for fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—is roughly equal to the total military budgets of all the rest of the world's nations combined. It is (adjusting for inflation) larger than any U.S. military budget since World War II.
But this is simply the Pentagon's share of the military budget (not related to war costs).
However, the OMBs documents have a category called "National Defense," which also includes $16.1 billion for nuclear warheads and reactors under the Department of Energy's control and $5.2 billion for "defense-related activities" at other agencies (mainly the FBI). There is also $4.3 billion for mandated programs (most having to do with military retirement and health care for victims of radiation sickness).
So, that brings the total, so far, to $541 billion. ("National Defense," by the way, does not include programs in the Department of Homeland Security; that's another story.)
Then there is the $70 billion emergency war supplemental that the Pentagon is requesting for FY 2009. Congress has yet to approve $102 billion left over from the supplemental for FY 2008. And that brings us to $713 billion.
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/30751
I can't remember all this and a commenter above was ridiculous in pointing out that some $ from DOD was spent on other ( Small) items: the truth is A LOT of money COMES to DOD from other government agencies!
I notice that you forgaot to mention NASA which has become almost entirely a defense program with VERY Little left for civilian work/research.
That's why most stuff there is classified and they've been posting altered pictures to hide what they have found (National security issues?) on NASA's official website.
Pics ot the trip to the moon were already doctored.
Ask the astronauts who saw UFOs around several missions!
and U may want to google UFO and NASA pictures because what U'll see from Nasa'site is amazing
It'sNOT DOD's buget being spent on other mostly SMALL items (you gave as examples) that matters and must be understood. it's what DOD is spending that comes form OTHER parts of government funding. For ex NASA has no money left for civilian research ; it's almost all military
The actual %of the budget spent on defense is much larger than official figures!
Veterans for Peace said that the 2004 budget (old data by now) was "higher than the combined spending of the next 20 nations" It was only $401B then...
Another source said, with black budget and siphoning from other programs it was an ASTOUNDING 2/3 of the total budget!
Cutting the pentagon/DOD budget by half and then half again would greatly HELP our National security.
Mr Wheeler said that we spend 3 times more than all of our next potential enemies spent together (China + Russia + Iran + N Korea,+I forgot which one next)
I'm not stupid: I know Russiaand China don't give us TRUE figures either...
Is there no armed services committee?
How many members of congress for the military to take things made in their district whether the troops needed them or not.
Sometimes, I see the military as a jobs program for individual congressional members.
But if the pentagon wasted any money then the problem lies with congress not the pentagon. Unless the pentagon is using money for purposes not intended by congress then those officers should be court martialed and the secretary of defense indicted.
One other thought. We are fighting ground based wars not naval.
http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h2647/show#
and then it needs to be funded by the appropriations people.
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-3326
Congress has to approve it TWICE before the military gets a dime.
While the generals may have derided Sec. Rumsfeld behind his back, in his presence they were shaking in their army boots.
If they didn't do what Rumsfeld directed, he would fire these fat sobs and replace them with yes men.
These generals were/ are nothing but princesses. All they know how to do is spend money.