Budget 2011: The Obama Five-Year Defense Budget Plan Is Worse Than a Freeze
Baker Spring /
The Obama Administration has been quick to point out that it has exempted the defense budget from its proposed freeze on other elements of discretionary spending in its budget. While the Administration has announced in the budget that it is requesting a $33 billion supplemental appropriation for defense in the current fiscal year and is providing modest real growth in the overall defense budget in fiscal 2011 over its new fiscal 2010 baseline, the five-year defense budget is well below “freeze” levels.
This is because it proposes to reduce the defense budget by about $92 billion from fiscal 2011 levels in fiscal 2012. This is a roughly 12 percent current dollar reduction in a single year. The overall defense budget would then see modest real growth annually for the remainder of the five-year program (through fiscal 2015), but only from the levels set by the draconian cut proposed for fiscal 2012. Defense increases following defense cuts cannot reasonably be considered increases. (more…)