I’ve heard that phrase a lot, and I remember working in the Defense industry and noticing a big difference between funding under Presidents Reagan and Clinton.

But is it true? Turns out, mostly yes, in terms of funding National Defense.

I looked at US Defense Spending (Historical Tables, Budget of the U.S. Government, Table 4.1) from 1977 to the present. The data is presented by Federal Fiscal Year, so I associated the President and Congress with the appropriate fiscal year.  For example, President Bush and the First Session of the 110th Congress (Speaker Pelosi and the 2006 Democrats) started the budget process in February 2007 for FY2008 (Oct 1 2007 through Sept 30 2008) . The Fiscal Year 2009 budget (for the fiscal year that begins Oct 1 2008) is currently being discussed in the Second Session of the 110th Congress.

Let’s start with President Carter and the Democratic 95th and 96th Congresses. What I found is that after years of post-Vietnam Democratic cuts, President Carter and the Congress actually increased Defense Spending significantly (7.5%, 11%, 15%, 17.5%). In My (revised) Opinion, Carter is blamed somewhat unfairly for the ‘hollow military’, while prior Democratic Congresses deserve the blame (along with President Ford to some extent). Note that years of cuts had taken their toll on the military.

President Reagan swept in with a GOP Senate and Democratic House for six years: defense spending increased 17%, 13%, 8%, 11%, 8%, and 3%.  Reagan’s last two years and the Democratic 100th Congress saw a 3% and 5% increase. Reagan demanded that General Secretary Gorbachev “tear down this (Berlin) Wall” in 1987; the Wall fell in 1989.

President George H.W. Bush and the Democratic 101st Congress cut defense spending by 2% and 10% (the ‘Peace Dividend’).  Germany was unified in 1990; Soviet Communism collapsed in 1990. Bush and the Democratic 102nd Congress increased defense spending by 9% after the First Gulf War, then cut defense by 3% in his last budget.

President Clinton and the Democratic 103rd Congress cut defense by 4% and 3%, then the 1994 GOP 104th Congress cut defense by 2% then increased defense by 2%. Clinton’s second term and the GOP 105th Congress cut defense by 1% then increased defense by 2%.  The GOP 106th Congress and Clinton increased defense by 8% and 3%.

President George W. Bush got an increase of 14% in his first defense budget, with a GOP House and Democratic Senate (107th Congress). After the 9/11 attacks, Bush and the 107th Congress increased defense by another 17%.  Bush and the GOP 108th Congress increased defense by 12% and 9%, then Bush and the GOP 109th Congress increased defense by 5% and 10%.

I am concerned that a Democratic Congress, with a possible Democratic President, will gut the military just like it was gutted after Vietnam…

For a different view of this topic, the Heritage Foundation analyzed defense spending as a percentage of GDP, and shows that defense spending (at 4% of GDP) is below the 45-year average of 5.5% and well below Vietnam and Cold War levels.

 

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This entry was posted by Reactionary on Thursday, May 15th, 2008 at 11:36 am and is filed under Government, History, Military. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Please note the copyright policy.