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Because, as we all know, Military Spending Doesn’t Count

by Jamelle

The nation’s top military officer said Wednesday that he expected the Pentagon to ask Congress in the next few months for emergency financing to support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, even though President Obama has pledged to end the Bush administration practice of paying for the conflicts with so-called supplemental funds that are outside the normal Defense Department budget.

The financing would be on top of the $130 billion that Congress authorized for the wars just last month.

And that financing would be on top of the $680 billion defense bill Congress authorized a few days ago.

If you’ve been reading my output with any regularity, you’ll know that there are few things that piss me off more than bloated defense budgets. And so in the interest of sparing you another tirade against inflated defense spending, here is Ryan Avent, who wonders if there are better ways to spend $680 billion:

What if? Well, this year, that would mean devoting $680 billion to investments in infrastructure. That’s more than $200 billion more than Oberstar’s entire proposed transportation reauthorization bill, which was itself a large increase over the previous transportation law. There’s probably no way we could spend all that money at once, but it would nicely capitalize an infrastructure bank, and the promise of a steady flow of funds would get states thinking about real, long-term investments.

With that kind of money you could entirely build out a national network of true high-speed rail. One year’s worth of defense spending gets you that. Which makes one wonder: where are all the economists, wringing their hands over cost-benefit analyses of these defense expenditures? Does anyone doubt that the net benefit of $100 billion spent on high-speed rail is easily higher than that for the last $100 billion spent on defense? Have a look at this if you’re unsure.

And while the gains to new investments in infrastructure (and not just in transportation) would be large, it isn’t as though we lack critical needs. What was the cost, human and economic, of the I-35 bridge collapse? Of the Metro crash and resulting limitations on service? Of the Bay Bridge shutdown? And of course, investments in infrastructure constitute positive contributions to the economy, which ultimately strengthen our ability to direct resources toward defense. Aimless defense spending, on the other hand, may well make us poorer and less secure.

I would also add that we could probably have a rational conversation about national priorities if we talked about defense spending in the same way that we talked about health care spending. That is, if all defense projects were scored according to their ten year cost, or if economists scrutinized the distortionary impact of massive defense spending, or if new defense spending had to be accounted for through tax increases or cuts in other spending, then we probably wouldn’t be so quick to perpetuate these out of control budgets. As it stands however, defense spending is magical spending, and as such, doesn’t actually have any impact on anything ever.

Also, I really want a pony.

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Tags | Afghanistan, congress, defense spending, fiscal irresponsibility, Iraq, New York Times, United States Congress, United States Department of Defense

12 comments

1 Alex { 11.05.09 at 11:04 am }: With those kinds of dollars you could get a unicorn.
2 Jaybird { 11.05.09 at 11:31 am }: Think of all the jobs created/saved by that expenditure.

Dan Miller
November 5th, 2009 at 11:51 am
Or, you could have 15 really amazing jobs.
3 Charles Schirra { 11.05.09 at 12:20 pm }: I did some research, The highest cost I can find for the Health Care bill is 1 Trillion dollars over 10 years, but Defense had a spending of over 4.7 Trillion in the past 10 years.

greginak
November 5th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
Very true Charles. It is an “interesting” way of framing issues. 90 billion per year for health care is outrageous and will doom the country and 680 billion, not counting wars, intell spending and various other costs that are shuffled off to other budget areas is just peachy keen fine.

Its almost like we don’t have a serious discussion of spending in this country.
4 Scott { 11.05.09 at 1:17 pm }: Think of how many more clunkers could have been traded in with all that money or how many other companies could have been bailed out?

Mark Thompson
November 5th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
Or, perhaps, all of the debt that could have not been incurred.

Scott
November 5th, 2009 at 2:50 pm
What fun is being in power if you can waste the taxpayers money on your pet projects? Even better, Obama could have used the money to throw all the people that don’t like the US a giant pizza party, after which I’m sure they would really like like us.

Cascadian
November 5th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
Thank god there are no pet projects in the military budget or objectives. Hey, let’s take our shiny toys and try to make completely foreign civilizations just like us.

Mark Thompson
November 5th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
“What fun is being in power if you can waste the taxpayers money on your pet projects?”

And exorbitant defense spending isn’t a pet project for the Right?

Scott
November 5th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
It depends on what you mean “exorbitant spending” is. For example, some would say Regan’s defense spending was exorbitant but others would say he was just reforming a hollow military after the lean post Vietnam war years. With that said, the cost of a conflict can be very expensive and should be a consideration before engaging in one.

Cascadian
November 5th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
But all these supplies are going to become outdated. We may as well use them now. Besides, we need the feedback to create the next generation ones. If we don’t spend the money, it’s just going to get used up for stupid domestic niceties which are fundamentally socialist. POTUS and the military swear an oath to protect all US interests didn’t you know.