Broken Promise of Change: The Obama Administration's Defense Strategy and Budget | Ted Galen Carpenter | Cato Institute: Commentary

Broken Promise of Change: The Obama Administration's Defense Strategy and Budget | Ted Galen Carpenter | Cato Institute: Commentary: 'An especially caustic critic is former Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey, who ridiculed pervasive media reports that President Obama was cutting almost half a trillion dollars from the defense budget. Obama “is not cutting a single dime out of the military budget,” Armey charged. “He is actually substantially increasing military spending over the next several years. Washington has once again cleverly disguised a spending increase as a ‘cut.’”

Armey is correct. President Obama’s so-called cuts are only modest reductions from the baseline budget set by the Congressional Budget Office that projected large increases in military spending over the next decade. As Armey notes, such spending “will continue to rise under President Obama’s plan, just at a slightly slower rate.”'

'Despite the furor from those who want even more robust military outlays, the spending levels in the Obama budget are actually higher in inflation-adjusted terms than the average budgets throughout the Cold War. Critics understandably ask why that should be so when the United States no longer faces a powerful military adversary like the Soviet Union. Secretary Panetta implicitly cited the reason why spending remains at such lofty heights, when he noted that a smaller force could not sustain the missions it is assigned. He added that “if we had to do over a trillion dollars in cuts in this department,” we’d probably “have to start over” regarding defense strategy.'