The Department of Defense
In
the Future Years Defense Program (FYDP) for FY13-17 the Army eliminates 8 Brigade Combat Teams, the Navy
eliminates 7 Cruisers and 2 Dock Landing Ships, the Air Force eliminates 7
Fighter Squadrons and reduces its aircraft inventory by 303 (123 combat
aircraft, 150 mobility and refueling aircraft, and 30 Intelligence,
Surveillance, and Reconnaissance aircraft) and the Marines eliminate 1 Infantry
HQ, 5 Infantry Battalions, 1 Artillery Battalion, 4 Tactical Air Squadrons, and
1 Combat Logistics Battalion. Army
end-strength will be reduced by 6.8%, Navy by 3.9%, Marine Corp by 8.3%, and Air
Force by 2.3%
The FY13 Defense Budget
$525.4
billion, the FY 2013 Base Budget provides a reduction of $5.2 billion from the
FY 2012 enacted level ($530.6 billion).
What are they spending it on?
$48.7
billion for the Unified Medical Budget covering 9.6 million beneficiaries. That is $5074 per beneficiary, slightly lower
than the national average of $5616
$1.6
billion for modernization of CH-47 helicopters, a heavy lift troop, cargo and
weapon transport. This provides upgraded
engines, avionics, and new airframes.
$300
million for 58 Nuclear, Biological, Chemical Reconnaissance Vehicles.
10
new ships: 2 Virginia-class attack submarines, 2 Destroyers, 1 Joint High-Speed
Vessel, 4 Littoral (shallow-water) combat ships, and 1 aircraft carrier.
$2.2
billion for 28 FA-18 aircraft
$1.1
billion for 12 EA-18G electronic warfare aircraft
$3.4
billion for standing up Cyber Command.
$8
billion for space programs, including GPS, missile warning, communications, and
launch facilities.
$300
million for the Next Generation Bomber
$2.7
billion for Strategic Deterrence (those would be nukes, folks)
$9.7
billion for Missile Defense
$1.4
billion for funding the Chemical & Biological Defense Program that includes
medical countermeasures (vaccines/antidotes), diagnostics, global
bio-surveillance, and non-traditional agent defense.
$2.3
billion for funding for cooperative threat reduction, mainly with the Russians.
$3
billion for Reserve Component equipment
$1
billion for Reserve Component construction
Overseas Contingency Operations
$88.5 billion, the FY 2013 budget request for Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) at a decrease of $26.6 billion from the FY 2012 enacted level. These are your wars and this is in addition to the $525.4 billion above, not part of it.
What are they spending it on?
Operations:
$48.2 billion
Force
Protection: $5.1 billion
Defeating
IEDs: $1.7 billion
Military
Intelligence Program: $4.5 billion
Afghan
Security Forces Fund: $5.7 billion (for 352,000 Afghan National Security
Forces)
Afghan
Infrastructure Fund: $400 million
Support
for Coalition Forces: $2.2 billion
Equipment
Reset and Repair: $9.3 billion
What do you want to cut?
Please feel free to opine. For the sake of discussion, if you wish to propose a cut, please explain why, what you think the repercussion of that cut will be, and why those effects are acceptable. It's easy to be an armchair Comptroller and proclaim that the military budget needs to be slashed, cut 10, 20, or 30% or more. It's an entirely different thing to attempt to understand what that means and what the repercussions will be globally, nationally, and economically.
Cheers!
43 comments:
It might be helpful if we could be given some understanding of how and why these confounding data sere formulated, and who was directly responsible for making these spending decisions.
It would also be helpful if we could see these figures as percentages of the entire defense budget, and be given at the same time some understanding in layman's terms precisely what each of these things do to protect the best interests of each individual American.
Otherwise, any criticism levied or cuts proposed would amount to nothing more than a series of shots in the dark.
~ FreeThinke
The military, like any bureaucracy is sure to have fat. That said, maybe it doesn't matter what is cut because how can a bankrupt nation afford to fight any war?
Afghan Security Forces Fund: $5.7B. Unless I can use those 352,000 troops to invade Iran, what's the point? I can do whatever they're capable of doing with a half dozen mafia families supplied with surplus Russian Army Kalishnakov's.
@ Thersites: "Afghan Security Forces Fund: $5.7B. Unless I can use those 352,000 troops to invade Iran, what's the point?"
Yes. A shining light pierces the darkness. And your mafia comment (given you are talking about Afghan Warlords and Ali Karzai's band of 40,000 thieves) is truer than most people think.
I'm no expert on this but I know congress has larded up the budget with weapons systems that the Pentagon doesn't want. The F-22, F-35, a missile defense battery on the east coast, Destroyers the Navy wants to discontinue due to their vulnerability, to name a few.
It's bi-partisan pork, so I'm not pointing fingers. The #1 reason is jobs in their districts. You gotta agree though, all those congress folk who lecture us on the futility of stimulus spending then turn around and whine about jobs lost from defense cuts have some splainin' to do.
Do we really need to maintain military bases all over the world? The number varies wildly, depending on the source, and I'm sure most may be necessary but isn't it worth a close look? Seems we're still on a Cold War footing.
Hey, just spit balling here.
I did find one of your stats remarkable.
$48.7 billion for the Unified Medical Budget covering 9.6 million beneficiaries. That is $5074 per beneficiary, slightly lower than the national average of $5616
I don't have data but I think it is safe to assume the per capita instances of lost limbs, bullet wounds, traumatic brain injury, severe PTSD, etc. is much higher than in the civilian population. The govt. delivers care cheaper and with a higher beneficiary satisfaction rate than private ins. How can that be?
Not enough info for me to opine intelligently, but somewhere, somehow I would hope we would be working on one heck of a missle defense system the likes unknown to others. Then batten down the hatches. That's how this whole thing is going down anyway.
How can that be, Craig?
Because, if you'd ever had the experience of availing yourself of the "free" medical services offered and administered by the VA, you'd know what a perfect working definition of HELL might be:
1. Long distances to commute to facilities, which remain few and far between
2. Long lines and longer hours of waiting to be seen once you get there.
3. Perfunctory diagnosis and treatment meted out impersonally by exhausted, overworked medical personnel
4. Sub-standard accommodations in the increasingly rare circumstances where you are required to remain overnight.
This is the sort of atmosphere in which medical care is bound to be dispensed as government control becomes stronger and private hospitals and nursing homes are forcibly phased out of existence.
Guys who've served in the military may be accustomed to the grimly regimented, "hurry up and wait" approach, but middle-class American citizens, who don't begin to realize how good they've had it, despite the burdensome expense -- and WON'T realize it till after its lost and gone forever -- thanks to the machinations of "those who always know what's best for everyone in the nation," and are determined to give it to them regardless of how they may feel about it.
~ FreeThinke
Are there separate line ites for graft and waste?
Cut the budget at Fort George Meade by 50% and make the remaining NSA hacks work for a living.
...but then we wouldn't know the kind of porn you like to watch at night, duckman.
btw - "The camera introduces us to unconscious optics as does psychoanalysis to unconscious impulses." - Walter Benjamin
With our current overseas obligations, cutting troops and procurement makes no sense. There's not that much fat here.
I don't think there is any practical way to cut and have a balanced budget and pay off the debt.
There's no political will in D.C. for this to happen. So we have to wait for the system to crash to rebuild something better. Obama, too, is hoping on a collapse to bring in his change as well.
ALL fiat currencies eventually fail or are replaced. The dollar is a fiat currency.
A sustainable budget after this dollar collapse / replacement would be heavy on defense and legitimate functions of government, very light on socialist spending.
If we get through this change on the right road we may be looking at a Swiss model of defense, where most of the troops are reserve / guard. We may have to reneg on many entangling alliances on the way to this potential future.
Switzerland has existed as a federal republic for over 500 years. The US: barely 200, and we are on life support.
When I was in high school during the Reagan years the history teacher gave us an assignment: Balance the budget without cutting "entitlement" programs.
Of course the DoD budget was the first we looked at.
In retrospect I see this liberal teacher was passing along a propaganda homework assignment taken from some progressive teacher's magazine.
The lesson: you can't even think about cutting "entitlements"! DoD is fair game, but pulling people away from the ample teats of Big Bro will get you mocked by the teacher.
How do we force out the fat?
How do we avoid making the procurement process a cash cow for Raytheon, Boeing and every contractor who funneled cash to the likes of scum like Joe Lieberman and Trent Lott?
The weakness in your figures, Finntann, is the difficulty in determining how much is really just pork.
@FJ -- ...but then we wouldn't know the kind of porn you like to watch at night, duckman.
----------
The only porn last night was the Houston pass defense. How did those pretenders get were they are?
They're as lame as the U.S. defense(LMAO) budget.
FT,
You're only looking at the base DoD budget. When you total all "defense" spending - all money spent because of or in the name of homeland security - you're talking close to 1.6 TRILLION this year alone.
We need to shrink our ground forces and global presence severely. We have to. We do not need such a huge standing army.
JMJ
Because, if you'd ever had the experience of availing yourself of the "free" medical services offered and administered by the VA, you'd know what a perfect working definition of HELL might be:
This HELL sounds better than what I've experienced through my private ins. Best Care Anywhere. A comprehensive study of the VA.
In 2004 the Annals of Internal Medicine compared the V.A. with commercial systems in care of diabetes - the V.A. provided better care in all 7 measures. Similarly, A RAND study found the V.A. outperformed other sectors in all 294 measures. The National Commission for Quality Assurance also found the V.A. outperformed the highest-rated non-V.A. hospitals. And for 6 consecutive years the V.A. received the highest consumer satisfaction ratings of any health care system.
@ Jersey: You're only looking at the base DoD budget. When you total all "defense" spending - all money spent because of or in the name of homeland security - you're talking close to 1.6 TRILLION this year alone.
Homeland security is a separate budget line. Pleas stop throwing up smokescreens.
I have asked you before to substantiate your $1.6 trillion remark, and I'm asking you again. We deal in facts here, not leftwing fever swamp talking points.
Put up or shut up. Substantiate your unfounded $1.6 trillion assertion.
Well, Craig, I speak from long drawn out and intense personal experience. You get your information from organizations that must benefit in some way direct or indirect from the position they take touting the government.
It's in line with the poppycock conjured up by the UN that insists the quality of medical care in the USA only ranks something-like 36th in the entire world.
I'm sorry you've had unsatisfactory personal experiences with the private health care industry. My long personal experience doesn't bear that out at all.
My father suffered a massive cerebral hemorrhage when I was twelve. He wasn't expected to recover, but he managed to beat the odds, and lived as a semi-invalid for twenty five more years, but not without experiencing thirteen more major hospitalization related to further cardio-vascular "events" none of which he was expected to survive -- but he did.
Later on, I found myself responsible for managing the care of a ninety-year-old aunt, and simultaneously got saddled with the care of a senior business partner who'd been very good in taking a chance on me when I badly needed a job many years before.
You don't desert aged relatives and good friends when they need you most. However, dealing with multiple medical issues with two aged dependents involving syncope, advancing senile dementia, coronary bypass surgery, diabetes, cancer, emphysema, kidney failure, kidney dialysis, and the hiring and firing of certified nursing assistants -- to say nothing of the querulousness, combativeness, ingratitude, unreasonable demands and false accusations that naturally accompany end-of-life care, even under the best of circumstances, I feel am a veteran, and therefore qualified to pass judgment.
The care and attention we received from doctors, laboratories, hospitals, physical therapists and rehabilitation centers I had to deal with over a ten-year period was nothing less than splendid.
'Managing CNA's involved in the in-home healthcare racket was another matter. Undue competetiveness between caregivers, petty jealousies, tale-telling, endless intrigues with banks and nursing agencies ... you name it ... was the norm there. I should have written it all down. It would have made a great soap opera.
BUT the professional care received from doctors and hospitals, et al. was frankly superb.
I, myself, am no stranger to medical problems, and I too have always been treated well by the medical community -- even when I was poor and uninsured.
For the past eight years I have had to go through seven surgeries involving corneal transplants in both eyes -- a long, drawn-out, suspense-filled process. Frankly, the results have been disappointng, but I am grateful to have any vision at all, since total blindness was the only alternative to not having surgery.
I tell you all this, only because my personal experience with the ophthalmologists involved has been so pleasant as to be nearly idyllic. In no way could hope for more competent, courteous, kind, attentive, and amazingly responsive care.
I have nothing but praise for American Medicine, as I have experienced it over a seventy-year period. However, I feel great trepidation at how the rest of my life may go now that we've been saddled with the beastly burden of Obamacare -- a hideous thing destined only to get worse.
Unlike most of the sources you cite, my testimony serves no "agenda." I have absolutely nothing to gain from relating my story other than the satisfaction that comes to men of good conscience when they know they have told the truth.
~ FreeThinke
"We need to shrink our ground forces and global presence severely. We have to. We do not need such a huge standing army."
Well, Jersey, amazingly for once I agree with you.
No one would like to see an end to the Warfare-Welfare State more than I, but the problem is THREE-PRONGED.
Welfare, Warfare and "Entitlements" are eating us alive and virtually guaranteeing a life of penal servitude to our children and grandchildren for many generations to come.
The Military-Industrial-Complex along with the Central Bankers and the Owners and Suppliers of Raw Materials have just about everyone in the world by the short hairs. It's a very nasty situation. The irony is the way those Oligarchs -- as I call them just because it's a handy term -- love it when people like you and me get involved fighting each other instead of THEM.
Happy Christmastime, Jersey! May your days be merrier and brighter in the future near and far.
~ FT
~
Silver,
You won't like where I got that figure from, so why bother? (re: It was an NPR interview I heard a few days ago and for the life of me I can't find it).
Just the same, think about it. What are the total expenditures spent on and incurred because of the military state this year?
No one knows. 1.6 tril sounds about right to me.
FT,
Entitlements are not eating us alive. If we simply allow the public to vote by that line on their paychecks, as they do with the big two entitlements (as they do in lot's of ways with lot's of other things in their lives too, ya' know), entitlements will be funded as they are. Cutting entitlements is pointless and counter-productive, and the public does not want that.
The military, on the other hand, is funded differently. There is no "military tax" on your pay stub. Of course, of all the other taxes you pay, on the state and local levels, a nice chunk of that goes to taking care of vets and their families, just as with all sorts of other constituencies.
Just the same, your SS and your Medicare are at least funded in some direct, personal way.
Entitlements can work themselves out.
The military spending is the problem.
I hate to say it.
I really do.
I've known many fine people who've served.
I know a lot of people depend on the military for their livelihood, and they do a lot of good, and mean well, and accomplish a lot... but...
What is the overall CBA for the country? For us. For America?
Unless we made the military an "entitlement," and I can't imagine why we would (remember the draft?), it will crush the US economy.
Besides, the Constitution only requires a maintained Navy. Just exactly how much more do we really need, right?
FT, you're staring down the two wimps in the room while ignoring the big dude staring you down.
JMJ
Having served on active duty for over 10 years in the U.S. Army, I have seen with my own eyeballs massive waste of resources. Stupid systems that cost a fortune that don't work. Gobs of military personnel on duty, where there is no duty. Money down a rat hole in epic proportions.
Massive waste. Millions and millions that I personally have seen go up in smoke that did not need to be spent. And I am just one lousy grunt. How many other grunts saw the same stuff I did? Maybe a couple of hundred thousand? Do the math, Finntann.
If you say that we can't cut a dime from defense, you are just flat out wrong. Dead to nuts in error.
We can probably cut the military by 50%, and still be the strongest power on earth, assuming we start getting smart about managing the military.
\
Put me in charge, and that can happen. But lots of lifers are going to pout about what happens.
OK Jersey, I'm feeling love in my heart because Christmas is nigh, so I'll state this again for you in a charitable manner:
2012 Spending/2017 Projections /Percentage of Total Budget
* DoD: 18% / 13%
* Health: 9.7% / 13%
* Medicare: 13% / 14%
* Income Security (Other than Social Security): 15.12% / 12%
* Social Security: 20% / 22%
* Interest on Debt: 6% / 12%
A child can see how horrible wrong you are
Please go here and dissolve your fog of ignorance. It's an official government site, download the spreadsheet and study it.
We can (and will) cut military spending. We cannot cut entitlements. You really demonstrate a poor grasp of this issue.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals
@The govt. delivers care cheaper and with a higher beneficiary satisfaction rate than private ins. How can that be?
There are a couple of factors involved. First, being able to order people to exercise is a big plus, so is the fact that people with chronic medical problems generally don't last until retirement age. Retirees have generally been inculcated into a 'culture of fitness' and are usually fitter than the public at large.
More importantly at 65, congress licks the vets to the curb, making Tri-Care a secondary payer and Medicare the primary. Not a big deal, but redirects the expense outside of the military budget.
The weakness in your figures, Finntann, is the difficulty in determining how much is really just pork.
Not my figures, they come from here:
http://comptroller.defense.gov/Budget.html
@If you say that we can't cut a dime from defense, you are just flat out wrong. Dead to nuts in error.
Fredd, I never said that. The point of this post was to address silly comments like:
"We can probably cut the military by 50%" by people who have no clue what the military budget is paying for, or what a 50% cut means in real-world terms.
The Budget is not a monolithic bill, it's more like a grocery list. If you want to make cuts they need to be targeted at specific programs, with a rational reason... not applied willy nilly because you think the budget is too big. If you were going to cut your grocery list by thirty percent... you wouldn't just cut off the first thirty items on a 100 item list, lest you wind up with potato chips and ice cream and no meat.
I understand this is not a comprehensive line item budget, I don't have access nor do we have the space to publish a line item budget. The items on this list were the big items that stood out, you'll notice there are no costs for housing, which of course exist in the actual budget. But I ask again... what do you see on this list that you think unneeded, frivolous, or pork?
You can say we don't need to spend $300 million for the next generation bomber, to which I could easily reply the last B-52 I was on was built in 1963.
I'm not saying we can't cut the DoD budget, I'm trying to illustrate that if we are going to cut the budget, we need to pick and choose, keeping those items that are most effective and eliminating those that are least.
Cheers!
I'd also like to point out that Defense is a legitimate and enumerated function of the Federal Government. Taking 15% of your 100K income and giving $9000 of it to the family down the street is not.
As illustrated by SF's figures above and every other pie chart I've seen on the federal budget, 60% of our expenses are entitlements.
Cheers!
@It might be helpful if we could be given some understanding of how and why these confounding data sere formulated, and who was directly responsible for making these spending decisions.
I'm not trying to blow you off FT, but I don't know if I can provide you a level of understanding in a blog post.
My initial attempt at this post was an explanation of the DoD Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution process in conjunction with the Congressional appropriations and authorization process.
It rapidly expanded out of control, as there is simply too much information that needs to be conveyed.
The DoD Budget Primer, which roughly outlines and explains the process step by step is 71 pages long and the introductory course for staff (Action Officer level) is a full week long. I don't think I could do it justice in a blog post, I tried and failed. Settling instead on the post you read today.
I don't know if there is enough interest to warrant a series of posts (it is all rather dry)... but if you're interested.. pipe up and let me know.
If you want to read the primer, it can be found here, although it is a little out of date, the process is mostly the same:
www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL30002.pdf
Not sure. I think that there can be reductions but I need more information to decide on the specifics.
$3.4 billion for standing up Cyber Command.
-------
WTF is that?
Cut the defense budget? We need to expand it.
Orbital kinetic bombardment weaponry.
Either you can hit anything anywhere on the planet with overwhelming force in 5 minutes or less with plausible deniability, or you're playing "fair" with the sub-Americans.
$3.4 billion for standing up Cyber Command.
Excellent question. Our computer networks, including critical infrastructure are under constant probing and attack, but does the military need to take up the mission to defend it?
Could it be done more efficiently by some other agency or government entity?
You get your information from organizations that must benefit in some way direct or indirect from the position they take touting the government.
You know this how? The author of the book I cited clearly has an agenda, arrived at by compiling and analyzing data from experts and organizations whose function is to gather information, make sense of it and come to a conclusion. That you can blithely dismiss it as biased, without any evidence, is a clear indication of your agenda.
I acknowledge your personal experience but for you to conclude that that is everyone's experience is myopic and intellectually lazy. You didn't say when this all occurred. 25, 30 years ago the VA was a mess. Any institution, public or private, would be if it is ignored. The VA has improved greatly. They achieve the same or better outcomes for less than Medicare, Medicaid or private. Our veterans deserve no less. I think all Americans deserve no less.
My beef isn't with the care my family has gotten from health care professionals, doctors and nurses. It's with the gatekeepers. For profit ins. co.s and hospitals. Having to fight with a ins. co. over whether or not a treatment for my daughters illness is covered and watching my premiums, co-pays and deductibles sky rocket because she got sick. Somethings wrong when I can be priced out because covering my daughter was no longer profitable.
Lies!
God-damned lies!
STATISTICS!!!!
Numbers are like the Bible. You can "prove" any damned thing you want by selecting segments and twisting them to serve your agenda.
You want a perfect society?
You might as well leave this world NOW, because you ain't NEVER gonna find it here. No way. No how. No time.
Not now.
Not EVER.
FreeThinke: measurement is worthwhile. Where there are so many measurements that they might be overwhelming, we resort to statistics. Meaningful statistics is hard, requiring not just skill but taste, but don't dismiss it entirely. It is possible that you can be mislead with statistics; without it, it is certain.
@Having to fight with a ins. co. over whether or not a treatment for my daughters illness is covered
Is there a difference between arguing with an ins. co rep and arguing with a bureaucrat?
Probably not much.
I don't think the government is the panacea you seek, my guess is that it will be worse dealing with government bureaucrats in the long run.
Is there a difference between arguing with an ins. co rep and arguing with a bureaucrat?
Yes. The ins. co. rep is accountable to no one but the ins. co. whose sole motivation is profit for share holders. A bureaucrat is, in the end, accountable to the public. I don't think govt. is a panacea. If private ins. acted responsibly, in the best interest of their customer, not the share holder, there would be no need for govt. to be involved.
I'm guessing FT, being 70, is on Medicare. He's written about his visual impairments and surgeries. Has Medicare ever denied him the care he needs?
When our cost/GDP is nearly twice what any other first world country pays with the same or worse outcomes, somethings wrong. When over 60% of bankruptcies are due to health care costs and 75% of those had ins., somethings wrong.
I agree, we have the finest medical care in the world. We have a huge problem with access and cost. We're excellent at treating injury and illness, lousy at prevention and early detection because too many don't have access. We're paying for it anyway, through taxes and increased premiums to cover the uninsured. We're paying more because a latter stage illness is more expensive to treat.
I'm not a big fan of Obamacare, but there are good things in it. It's clear, the current private, employer based model isn't working well.
Craig:
I grant you have a point, but government is obviously not answerable to the people. And they are way over budget.
The only reason government can even pretend to "compete" with private enterprise is because it can print its own money and run deficits forever, something no company can do.
The only reason government can even pretend to "compete" with private enterprise is because it can print its own money and run deficits forever, something no company can do.
Nonsense. Medicare runs on about 3% overhead. Private ins. skims 15%-20% off the top, before administration and paying providers.
Private insurance must compete for customers, government does not. When you look at actual bureaucratic costs, government is higher.
I did a post on this. I'll see if I can dig it up for you, but consider just how in debt the federal government is. No private company would stay afloat is such a condition.
Private ins. competes for healthy customers. They pass the unhealthy off on the govt. Actually, they do compete. Compare traditional Medicare with Medicare Advantage, govt. subsidized private ins. for seniors. 76% of seniors choose traditional Medicare.
No private company would stay afloat is such a condition.
No private ins. company is mandated to cover the cost of treating a severely ill or injured person. Unless your willing to just let people die because they can't afford ins. What would you suggest?
Wouldn't getting more healthy people into a larger pool make more sense?
When you look at actual bureaucratic costs, government is higher.
!5% to 20% off the top. Plus $19M last year for the like of Cigna CEO David Cordani. $87M to ins. co. CEO's, total. Now you can start looking at bureaucratic (administrative) costs. I have no doubt it's cheaper to stamp "denied" on a claim than to process it.
Once again, I reiterate: Government is over budget and can print its own money. It does not balance its books according to FASB, like it requires its private sector "competitors" to do, so we already start with an uneven comparison.
Also, you are quoting wildly biased opinion, not fact.
Go read this:
http://www.insideronline.org/archives/2009/spring/MythHealthCare.pdf
It too is opinion, but she uses data from impartial auditing firm Price Waterhouse Coopers.
When you figure in government costs not accounted for in the biased quotes, it's a wash at best.
@A bureaucrat is, in the end, accountable to the public.
ROFLMAO
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