Some Numbers for Mr. Shaw

[tshuman@ccp.com]

According to Jeff Shaw:

>We are staring at said budget almost solely, though not entirely,
>because of a bloated military budget that began in earnest during
>the Reagan years

I am not sure that "bloated" is the proper term for a level of
military spending which may well have precipitated the collapse of the
Evil Empire....

>and has continued to rise despite the end of the cold war.

This is just plain wrong.  Here are some numbers:

    1)  According to the Pentagon's recently released Quadrennial
        Defense Review (QDR), the defense budget is capped at
        $250 billion or lower for the foreseeable future; now, I am
        really shitty at math, but $250 billion is only 14.7 percent
        of $1.7 trillion, and so long as the spending cap is in 
        place the percentage will go down, not up....
    2)  According to John Hillen, a National Security Fellow with
        the Council on Foreign Relations, "In the space of ten
        years, 1991-2001, the U.S. Army will have been reduced
        from 18 divisions to 8 or 9, the Navy from 546 ships to
        just over 300, and the Air Force from 36 fighter wings to
        17 or 18."
    3)  Again from Hillen:  "And despite constant assurances of
        turning the corner on what the Congressional Budget Office
        termed 'the procurement holiday,' the 1998 defense budget
        drops spending on new equipment for the fourth year running.
        All in all, spending in the procurement account has fallen
        some 70 percent since 1985.  Numerous think-tanks have
        joined the CBO and GAO in warning of a defense train wreck
        that the recent Pentagon review blithely ignores."
    4)  Hillen, one mo' time:  "[G]iven the explosion in entitlements
        and the fact that defense spending is at its lowest levels
        (as a percentage both of GDP and of federal spending) since
        before Pearl Harbor, there would not be much payoff [from
        shifting defense dollars to other budget priorities].  The
        U.S. will pay more in interest on the debt in a few years
        than on national defense.  If some clever analyst figured
        out how to save DoD another $20 billion per year, it would
        finance new spending on Social Security, Medicare, and
        Medicaid for less than four months--an equation that will
        get worse as time goes on.  Conservatives should recognize
        that the peace dividend is not a chance to defer the
        entitlement train wreck for a few months.  The peace dividend
        is peace."

        [Note:  Parenthetical comments in original; bracketed stuff
         is mine....]
        
Terrance Shuman
Bishop LeBlond Memorial High School
St. Joseph, Missouri

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