Americas Defense Meltdown - IT Acquisition Advisory Council

Winslow T. Wheeler • 221reasonable calculation argues that the“National Defense” budget category constitutes21 percent of federal spending,and that percent of the 2009 paymenton the debt should be calculated. Thatwould be $54.5 billion.There’s more; add the costs to the U.S.Department of the Treasury for militaryretirement that are not counted in theDOD budget; that’s $12.1 billion. Somewould also add the interest earned inthe Treasury’s military retirement fund,another $16.2 billion.Altogether, the total security billfor America for 2009 comes to $863.7billion. (Actually, it will be more – onceCongress and the White House adopt aspending figure for Iraq and Afghanistanthat approximates reality.)Table 1 recounts these numbers.Some will argue that the $863.7billion figure inflates what we spendfor national defense. It is, of course, significantlymore than what we are askedto pay for the Department of DefenseTable 1.Total National Security Costsas Requested in President George W. Bush’sFiscal Year 2009 BudgetCategory2009 RequestDOD 518.3War Funding 70.0“Atomic Energy DefenseActivities” (DOE)“Defense RelatedActivities” (GSA, etc.)($588.3 billion), but it can be argued that the figure that is $275.4 billion higher(not including the full cost of the wars) better characterizes what we pay for nationalsecurity.A Comparison to History and Other NationsEven if you count just Pentagon spending for 2009, it is a historic amount. It is morethan we have spent for the Department of Defense at any time since the end of WorldWar II.Figure 1 on the next page shows post-World War II Pentagon spending; the dollarsare adjusted for inflation.Notice in Figure 1 how far above average Cold War spending we are today. Withno superpower opponent challenging the United States, this is remarkable. A lesspowerful threat means a larger budget.It is also notable that what the U.S. government spends for national defense is anamount that approximates what the rest of the world spends. Depending on which17.15.7Homeland Security (DHS) 40.1Veterans Affairs (DVA) 91.3International Affairs 38.4Non-DOD MilitaryRetirement21% of Interest on theDebt28.354.5Grand Total 863.7Source: Office of Management and Budget