Fuzzy Math and the Pentagon Budget

What exactly is the position of the Obama Administration and the Secretary of Defense Robert Gates on the Pentagon budget? Are they going to cut? By how much? No one seems to really know. Foreign Policy has a nice summation of the “fuzzy math” behind all of this and singles out the Obama Administration for continually changing the rules on the Pentagon budget. Here’s an excerpt. Be sure to read the whole thing.

“Gates held a press conference on Thursday to announce a new set of measures that he said would save $100 billion in “efficiencies,” and reduce defense spending by another $78 billion on top of that, over the next five years. He said that these steps were necessary ‘to tackle the budget deficit and the debt problem.’

Gates said that his plan would allow the Defense Department to maintain ‘modest’ growth going forward. He has spoken openly about how his strategy is meant to defend the defense budget from both those on the right that seek ever-increasing military budgets and those on the left, as well as conservative deficit hawks, who seek steep cuts in defense funding as part of the U.S. efforts to reduce the government’s massive deficits.

‘My hope is that, as we go through the hearings for the fiscal year ’12 budget, that we will be able to show those who are interested in protecting defense that we have done that, and those who think that defense ought to contribute to reducing the deficit, that we have done that as well,’ he told PBS News Hour’s Jim Lehrer.

That requires Gates to portray his new saving announcements as “cuts” to please those who are concerned with deficits — which angers the right — while simultaneously portraying his efforts as a defense of steadily increasing budgets to mollify defense hawks, which angers the left and those concerned with the deficit.

‘We will have modest growth in the defense budget for the next three fiscal years. And, then, the last two years of the five-year period, we will be protected against inflation, but not have real growth,’ Gates told the press conference.

‘These cuts are being made without any commitment to restore modest future growth, which is the only way to prevent deep reductions in force structure that will leave our military less capable and less ready to fight,’ shot back Rep. Buck McKeon (R-CA), the new head of the House Armed Services Committee.

Gates is not only stuck between two sides of Congress, but also must deal with the White House, which is changing the rules on him in the middle of the game. The whole reason that Gates was forced to find $78 billion in new savings over five years was the agreement he struck with the White House on future budgets was cancelled by Jacob Lew, the new director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).