Tighter Budget Hampers Bush’s Defense Plans

WASHINGTON —  The Bush administration’s campaign to rebuild the armed forces, already facing resistance from some in Congress and the military, now confronts what may be its most formidable obstacle: a tightening federal budget.

President Bush’s proposed defense spending increase for next year is the largest since 1985, yet the $33-billion request could be scaled back sharply to fund health, education and other programs, lawmakers and defense analysts say.

More ominously, the next budget--which is supposed to finance the first big piece of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld’s transformation plan--will face even greater pressure as the $1.35-trillion tax cut and other commitments further erode the government’s surplus. Some budget experts predict that the Pentagon might actually be forced to cut spending next year.

For the military reform effort--one of the administration’s signature programs--”it’s a pretty serious threat,” said Thomas Donnelly, a defense analyst for the conservative Project for a New American Century. “If I were in the Pentagon, I’d be nervous as a cat.”

Defense ‘Help’ May Be Delayed

A tight lid on new defense spending could have wide ramifications.

It could bring criticism that a president who promised the military during the 2000 campaign that “help is on the way” hasn’t lived up to his commitments. It could sharpen pressures from the military and many in Congress to shift money from missile defense--another Bush priority--to military needs some regard as more urgent, such as equipment maintenance.

And it could force Rumsfeld to look for savings by killing big weapon programs, such as proposals for new fighter planes and ships.

But such a move could set off a bruising struggle with congressional supporters of upgraded weapons.

The underlying problem is that, while there is bipartisan support to increase the $296-billion military budget, defense isn’t the priority for either side.

Republican lawmakers, though eager for a military spending increase, made the tax cut their first goal. And now they don’t want to be accused of wiping out the budget surplus.

Democrats are focused on domestic priorities and, like the GOP, want to resist any move to tap into the Medicare and Social Security surpluses for other spending.

The surprise power shift in the Senate has given unusual power over defense spending to a Democrat who has deep reservations about the proposed increases.

Earlier this year, when Republicans controlled the Senate, they wrote a provision in the 2002 budget resolution that gave former Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.) and House Budget Committee Chairman Jim Nussle (R-Iowa) power to approve or disapprove Pentagon requests for extra money.

But with the shift of control of the Senate to the Democrats, Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) now has the budget committee’s top job and, along with it, this special power over defense spending.

On Tuesday, Conrad said he believed the administration’s defense spending proposal could eat into Medicare and Social Security funds and urged officials to finance $18 billion of the hike by cutting the military budget elsewhere.

With the tax cut taking hold and a slowing economy, the military’s request “will just make this situation worse,” Conrad said.

The Democratic leaders of the Senate have already arranged the chamber’s schedule, so it may be tough for the Pentagon to get all of the increase it has requested for next year.

The defense appropriations bill is to be considered after the other 12 spending bills--perhaps leaving senators to choose between cutting back military spending or violating the budget resolution Republicans approved earlier in the year.

Budget Crunches Military Reform

The administration’s program to reshape the military wasn’t supposed to entail big spending increases. During the campaign, Bush and running mate Dick Cheney said they planned to increase military spending about $4.5 billion a year.

But when they arrived in office, they discovered the military was in far worse shape than expected and needed a huge infusion of money to pay for personnel needs, maintenance, operations and weapons. The new administration committed itself to strengthening the military, as well as to a “transformation” effort to give the services a new organization, new strategy and more modern weapons.

The transformation program doesn’t necessarily need to be expensive in its early stage, though it will require money for research and development.

But in the current budget situation, plans to have both a “get well” program and a transformation effort “appear increasingly problematic,” according to a recent analysis by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a defense think tank in Washington that advocates military reform.

The budget crunch will create pressure to pare several parts of the administration’s 2002 spending plan. There’s likely to be a fight, for example, over the administration’s proposal to raise spending on missile defense to $8.3 billion from $5.3 billion.

In terms of other possible cuts, Rumsfeld has said he would like to find additional savings by decreasing the military’s infrastructure by as much as 25%. But when he raised the subject in hearings on his new budget last week, several lawmakers made clear that they would oppose base closures, just as they had in the Clinton years.

“I have only one base, and I do need it,” Rep. Rob Simmons (R-Conn.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, told Rumsfeld.

Even if Rumsfeld were able to pull off a new round of base closings, savings would probably not appear for at least three years.

Some analysts believe Rumsfeld missed his best chance to bring about radical reform by not pushing for it from the start of his tenure. Administrations typically have their strongest support, and best chance to bring about change, at their debut.

By next year, Congress will be facing an election and will be less willing to risk angering voters.

The outlook is discouraging for many of those who have been rooting for military reform.

Ivan Eland, defense analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute, said he started the year with hope.

But now, he said, “I’m pretty pessimistic.”