President Obama’s FY14 Defense Budget

The President released his FY2014 budget yesterday, including a $526.6 billion base budget for the Department of Defense (DoD).  It is almost not worth analyzing the President’s budget on an in depth level, for one need only look at this number to see that the President is playing political games.  

Due to the Budget Control Act and the affixed sequestration cuts that come with it; by law (whether we like it or not) the DoD’s base budget is capped at $475 billion.  The President’s budget for defense spending is predicated on a number that is not allowed to happen.

Sequestration, which came about as a result of the Budget Control Act, was first put forward by the White House and mandates across the board cuts to discretionary spending — about half of which is defense spending.  This process will indiscriminately cut the defense budget across the board and will force our military to curtail training, furlough employees, forego maintenance, and give up on the development of new weapons systems.  These cuts will have serious effects on our military’s preparedness and severely limit our ability to respond to threats.

However, because the deadline to stop sequestration has come and gone, sequestration is now the law of the land.  This means that the base budget for the DoD cannot go above $475 billion without completely ignoring the law. 

Let us be clear, the additional $51.6 billion that the President wrote into his base defense budget is something that — by law — was never a possibility.  Unless the President stops blocking efforts to replace sequestration, this proposal is nothing more than a farce.

The President’s proposal seems more like a political game from a man more interested in not looking bad, than a serious budget.  The President’s budget proposal bypasses sequestration by calling for tax hikes, various cuts through reforms to Tricare, the elimination of various civilian workers, use of budget gimmicks on interest from past deficit reductions, as well as a call for a new round of BRAC (Base Realignment and Closure).

Reducing the number of military bases, via BRAC, would create space limitations that would significantly limit the number of personnel the military could reenlist in the force.  This will affect future troop ramp-ups in case of large-scale conflict.  By suggesting a new round of BRAC, the President is willing to shrink our force and undermine his own purported doctrine of reversibility — regarding military personnel — all while using the guise of averting sequestration cuts to do it.

The President’s budget proposal (much like his immigration policy) ignores the law of the land.  By feigning the appearance that he wants more military spending, he can masquerade his willingness to let sequestration happen while maintaining the guise that he is willing to go against the law to preserving a strong military.  

This is a nothing more than a political game that allows him to remove the blame from himself and makes it appear as if he is doing all in his power to halt sequestration.  This is not a serious proposal from a serious President.