ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, April 13, 1996 TAG: 9604150029
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
EVER ON the lookout for ways to spend more on the military, congressional leaders have asked the Pentagon to request billions more for weapons systems than the administration had been seeking. The other day, in a private memo leaked to The New York Times, the military chiefs complied.
Now, don't get us wrong. We're for a strong defense. But since when, wise people have asked, has a problem been solved by throwing money at it?
There is after all a fiscal context to consider: ostensible consensus in Washington on the need to balance the budget within seven years.
President Clinton's plan for doing so, unveiled last month, calls for $297 billion in cuts to discretionary funding. It so happens that the military consumes half of all discretionary funds (spending, that is, on items other than entitlements and interest on the debt).
Yet, of the $297 billion in proposed cuts, only $16 billion would come in military-spending reductions, according to an administration analysis. The rest would come from domestic programs.
Meanwhile, Congressional Republicans this year approved $7 billion more for the Pentagon than it had requested. That feat, along with asking the military chiefs to propose additional spending on weapons programs above the administration's budget for next year, cancels even some of the modest cuts that Clinton had proposed.
If this folly continues, taxpayers should expect to pay for more B-2 bombers than the defense department has sought or than the nation needs, at more than $40 billion apiece.
Expect development, and maybe deployment, of a missile-defense system, never mind the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972.
Expect lots more gold-plated C-17 transport aircraft, costing an absurd $350 million apiece (but built in electorally crucial California).
Expect all this and more, even as funding for diplomatic, foreign-aid, United Nations and war-prevention activities continues to be slashed by a myopic Congress.
The latest development - the military chiefs' informal proposals for additional weapons funding, came in response to a request by Rep. Floyd Spence, a South Carolina Republican who is chairman of the House National Security Committee. At hearings last month, he asked the chiefs to tell Congress whether they could find any use for up to $3 billion, per branch, in extra appropriations that they hadn't asked for.
Guess what: They were able to find ways to spend the money. Leave it to others to find ways to save it.
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