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How our defense spending is killing us
by Jim Babka
January 22, 2004In 2003, I had the privilege of participating in the team that created radio ads and a web site called TruthAboutWar.org (TAW). Libertarian Harry Browne was also a member of that team. The project was funded and built by libertarians. Libertarians usually see war as the "very health of the state."
As a result of that campaign, Harry and I heard from scores of people – all of whom are either concerned about the size and scope of government or the loss of our liberties (if not both) – telling us to leave this issue alone. Some questioned our patriotism or courage. Others accused us of just being "anti-Bush."
I've especially enjoyed the correspondences that said we're liberals!
Many of our libertarian friends have worried that Harry Browne and I were spending too much time on a divisive issue, when we should've been talking about other things like the Patriot Act, Medicare bills, or anything else you can imagine.
War is a symbol for Big Government
In the book "Crisis and Leviathan" Robert Higgs demonstrates how government relies on crisis' to grow dramatically. After the crisis subsides, government always contracts, but not back to its previous level. In other words, crisis is the key to creating the Leviathan government we have today. And every crisis requires a war, like a war on illiteracy, a war on poverty, or a war on drugs.
And even when it comes to the Iraq war, Higgs has a point. This war has,
- led to unbridled growth in government.
- removed President Bush from accountability on other issues. That loss of accountability has removed the last vestiges of restraint or opposition the GOP was willing to mount to government growth -- they're now outspending the Democrats and expanding entitlements.
- meant a nation-building exercise that has already cost us nearly $100 billion, and that's just the beginning.
- resulted in thousands of deaths, 500 of which have been to Americans.
- violated the Constitution and standards of Just War, ripping at the moral fabric of the country.
What do you believe?
Do you believe that government should be smaller? Does the return of deficits that exceed $500 billion bother you?
Maybe you're concern is civil liberties. But if it weren't for the present crisis, would we have,
- a Patriot Act?
- intrusive, rude airport security?
- new mega-databases that include private information about you and me?
Those questions are more than rhetorical. If you really are concerned about any of the policy areas we've just covered, than you must take a hard look at the management-by-crisis that all of these politicians believe in and practice. It's the elephant in the living room that we cannot overlook.
An elephant in the living room
Again, let's turn to Robert Higgs, who just authored a new study, "The Defense Budget Is Bigger than You Think."
In the President's State of the Union the other night, he indicated he wanted to take the Defense Budget to $401 billion dollars – more than any 20 other nations spend, combined. But Higgs said that's only part of the story.
Defense Outlays in Fiscal Year 2002
(In billions of dollars)
Department of Defense 344.4 Department of Energy 18.5 Department of State 17.6 Department of Veterans Affairs 50.9 Agencies incorporated into Department of Homeland Security 17.5 Department of Justice (homeland security) 2.1 Department of Transportation (homeland security) 1.4 Department of the Treasury (homeland security) 0.1 National Aeronautics & Space Administration (homeland security) 0.2 Other agencies (homeland security) 4.7 Interest attributable to past debt-financed defense outlays 138.7 Total 596.1 As for what his chart doesn't cover, Higgs adds,
"If the additional elements of defense spending continue to maintain approximately the same ratio to the DoD amount -- and we have every reason to suppose that they will -- then in fiscal year 2004, through which we are passing currently, the grand total spent for defense will be approximately $695 billion.
"To this amount will have to be added the $58.8 billion allocated to fiscal year 2004 from the $87.5 billion supplemental spending authorized on November 6, 2003, for support of U.S. military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq and for so-called reconstruction of those despoiled and occupied countries. Thus, the super-grand total in fiscal year 2004 will reach the astonishing amount of nearly $754 billion -- or 88 percent more than the much-publicized $401.3 billion -- plus, of course, any additional supplemental spending that may be approved before the end of the fiscal year."
To say that libertarians like Harry Browne or I should focus on other issues -- as we have -- but not talk about the war, is like saying, "the patient is bleeding to death, let's get him a band- aid." Stopping this war and the planting of hundreds of thousands of troops on foreign soil in Iraq and elsewhere is a big key to "Downsizing DC."
Our own "defense" is killing us.
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