{"id":1019,"date":"2013-02-23T10:13:49","date_gmt":"2013-02-23T16:13:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/?p=1019"},"modified":"2013-02-25T10:19:27","modified_gmt":"2013-02-25T16:19:27","slug":"how-defense-spending-will-grow-under-sequester-cuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/how-defense-spending-will-grow-under-sequester-cuts\/","title":{"rendered":"How defense spending will grow under sequester cuts"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Byron York, Washington Examiner
\nclick here for original article<\/a><\/p>\n

The major objection most Republicans have to the coming sequestration budget cuts is that the cuts will fall disproportionately on the Department of Defense.\u00a0 That\u2019s true; defense spending is about one-fifth of the federal budget but will take about half of the sequester cuts.<\/p>\n

But even for the Pentagon, the cuts are only to the rate of growth for the defense budget in coming years.\u00a0 They are not actual cuts that make spending decline.\u00a0 In a February publication, \u201cThe Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2013 to 2023,\u201d the Congressional Budget Office (summary here<\/a>, full report here<\/a>) outlines the increases in defense spending that will happen even with the various spending caps and sequestration cuts that are currently law.\u00a0 Table 1-5 (Outlays) on page 30 outlines projected defense spending in the coming decade.\u00a0 For 2014, the figure is $593 billion.\u00a0 For 2015, it is $597 billion.\u00a0 For 2016, $611 billion.\u00a0 For 2017, $619 billion.\u00a0 For 2018, $628 billion.\u00a0 For 2019, $648 billion.\u00a0 For 2020, $663 billion.\u00a0 For 2021, $679 billion.\u00a0 For 2022, $702 billion.\u00a0 And for 2023, $714 billion.<\/p>\n

In other words, defense spending will increase in every year, even with sequestration cuts.<\/p>\n

Readers may notice that the figures cited above include \u201cwar-related spending\u201d of between $75 billion and $103 billion for the entire decade to come.\u00a0 Because the war in Afghanistan is going on now, and there is no law to stop spending on the war at some point in the future, the CBO is bound to assume that the spending will continue.\u00a0 \u201cThe rules the CBO has to follow are that any spending on the books (\u2018current law\u2019) is assumed to grow at the rate of inflation,\u201d says former CBO chief Douglas Holtz-Eakin.\u00a0 \u201cThat means that it overstates spending when you plan to cut back in the future but have not yet passed a law (future appropriation) that reflects it.\u201d<\/p>\n

But assume that U.S. involvement in the war in Afghanistan does end in the next year or so, and that war spending goes down or even disappears altogether.\u00a0 Even in that scenario, defense spending is scheduled to increase in every year except one, even with sequestration cuts.\u00a0 The CBO\u2019s numbers, minus war spending, begin with $518 billion in 2014.\u00a0 For 2015, the number is $510 billion.\u00a0 For 2016, $520 billion.\u00a0 For 2017, $525 billion.\u00a0 For 2018, $532 billion.\u00a0 For 2019, $549 billion.\u00a0 For 2020, $563 billion.\u00a0 And for 2021, $576 billion.\u00a0 (The CBO chart does not have relevant numbers for 2022 and 2023.)<\/p>\n

So under a scenario of continued war in Afghanistan and under a scenario of no war in Afghanistan, and everything in between, defense spending is scheduled to rise steadily in the next decade, even with sequestration cuts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Byron York, Washington Examiner click here for original article The major objection most Republicans have to the coming sequestration budget cuts is that the cuts will fall disproportionately on the Department of Defense.\u00a0 That\u2019s true; defense spending is about one-fifth of the federal budget but will take about half of the sequester cuts. But […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1020,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/w620-b39e28e05d7240792b69e39fc85635e5.jpg?fit=461%2C370&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1019"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1019\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1022,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1019\/revisions\/1022"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}