Pentagon Spending Continues to Rise This Year
By Jim Cason on 03/15/2011 @ 11:30 AM
Congress will approve a spending bill in mid-April that requires deep cuts in some government spending over the next six months, while allowing Pentagon spending to rise by between $5 billion and $15 billion. As I write this, our lobbyists believe that after avoiding a government shutdown last week, both the House and the Senate this week will approve and send to the president a bill that would set levels for government spending between now and September 30, 2011.
The headlines about this spending bill have focused on the nearly $40 billion in cuts in government spending -- the largest cuts in government spending in many decades. Yet behind the story, there is another story. As the New York Times reported today, many of the cuts in domestic spending programs are offset by what the Congressional Budget Office calculates is a $5 billion increase in Pentagon spending.
Our own FCNL calculations, done by my colleague Ruth Flower, suggests that total military spending appropriated in that bill may actually be increasing by $15 billion over the level of the last fiscal year. Part of difference depends on what is counted in the military spending total.
Whatever numbers you use, there's no question that we've got more work to do to persuade Congress to cut the budget of the one government agency that wastes more in a year than many cabinet agencies get to spend and hasn't successfully passed a comprehensive audit in decades. I hope all of you will take a moment to let Congress know what you think.
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