RSC Gets Budget Right, Defense Wrong

James Carafano / June 04, 2010

Heritage budget analyst Steve Keen, rightly points out that the Republican Study Committee (RSC) has unveiled a budget proposal that “is a welcome fiscal blueprint that would restore fiscal discipline to the nation and avert a Grecian formula meltdown.”

Unfortunately, the RSC budget also gets a critical component of the budget wrong. It misses the mark on Washington’s #1 job; its Constitutional responsibility to provide for the common defense. At the heart of the RSC budget is a commitment to bring federal discretionary spending, of which defense is a component, back to FY 2008 levels. It implies that the defense portion of that broader category of spending will essentially be at the levels recommended by the Obama Administration by end of the decade. Thus, the RSC budget carries essentially the same risks for national security as the Obama budget. Our military desperately needs to recapitalize after years of fighting the Long War. (more…)