Defense Spending: What Would Reagan Do?

Scott Nason / January 28, 2011

In his State of the Union address to Congress, President Obama acknowledged the problems of massive deficit spending and mounting debt and offered a general plan that he said would restore fiscal health. It includes cuts to the defense budget. With two ongoing wars, numerous asymmetrical threats to our security, and the depleted state of our military, it’s appropriate for Defense Secretary Robert Gates and the new Congress to ask if this is prudent.

In yesterday’s Washington Times, Heritage Vice President Kim Holmes considers what Ronald Reagan would do about this fiscal crisis. No doubt he would have wanted the Department of Defense to operate efficiently and without wasting taxpayers’ money. But nothing, Holmes says, suggests that Reagan “would have mortgaged America’s future by slowing military modernization or reducing the size of the armed forces exclusively to save money.” On the contrary, Reagan told his military planners that defense was not a budget issue and they could spend what they need to assure that we won whatever wars we were in. (more…)