Forging Consensus On Defense Spending? The Making Of A Coalition To Prevent Hemorrhage In US Security

On 4 March 1993, the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sam Nunn (D-GA), took the floor of the U.S. Senate to deliver an important warning to the Clinton Administration and his colleagues: Stop viewing the defense budget as a bill-payer, a sort of slush fund that can be used relentlessly to defray other spending needs. Sen. Nunn observed:

"Unfortunately, there continue to be those who seem to believe that the defense budget can bear all the budget cuts, and that we can get the deficit under control if only we would cut the ‘Cold War’ defense budget."

 

Observing that some 85 percent of the spending cuts proposed in the Clinton Administration’s economic program are achieved through defense reductions, Sen. Nunn commented: "The Defense Department seems to be the only part of the federal government that has carried its fair share."

Sen. Nunn’s remarks closely parallel an important statement by Jack Kemp delivered as a commentary last week on the new public television series, "The World This Week." As part of a program concerning the viability and future of the U.S. defense industry, the prominent conservative leader said:

"The executive branch and Congress must…resist the temptation to regard the U.S. defense budget as an account that can be freely drawn upon to pay for perceived spending requirements in other areas.

 

"Instead, it is time for a real partnership to be forged between industry and government — one that will permit predictability, reliable long-range planning, efficient investment, orderly consolidation and appropriate adjustments in our defense industrial capability. Much is riding on whether the Clinton Administration appreciates the need for such a partnership and whether it will provide the leadership necessary to bring it about."

 

Also participating in this program, hosted by Center for Security Policy director Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., were former Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, Senator Nunn’s Armed Services colleagues Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and John McCain (R-AZ) and Martin Marietta Corporation chairman Norman Augustine. (Copies of the full transcript may be obtained from Journal Graphics, 303/831-9000.)

The Center for Security Policy has long believed that the best hope for avoiding a reckless — and, ultimately, enormously costly(1) — dismantling of the U.S. security posture and its associated defense industry lies in the reforging of a bipartisan coalition organized by the late Senators Henry M. ("Scoop") Jackson (D-WA) and John Tower (R-TX) during the last Democratic presidency. The Center commends Messrs. Nunn and Kemp for their recent, strong statements about the Clinton cuts in the military and hopes that these parallel remarks will serve as the starting point for such a common effort.

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1. See the attached op.ed. by Mr. Gaffney which appeared recently in USA Today.