Security Spending Primer: Getting Smart About The Pentagon Budget

Security Spending Primer:

Getting Smart About The Pentagon Budget

How do people influence federal spending decisions and
stop fighting over smaller and smaller “slices of the budgetary pie”?

What will make our nation more secure?
National Priorities Project is proud to release the Security Spending Primer: Getting Smart About The Pentagon Budget. (PDF Document)

This Primer is a is a “one-stop-shopping” resource and has two main goals:

• to provide comprehensive, easy-to-understand information on the complexity of the federal budget process; and
• to help build the capacity of people across the United States who want their voices and their priorities to be heard in the debate over federal spending in general and military spending in particular.

Even though federal spending and policy priorities have an enormous impact on individual lives, the budgeting and policy-making process remains mysterious to most Americans. NPP believes that good, concrete information strengthens social change work. In order to make our federal government more accountable, people – especially those most affected by social inequities – must play a central role in identifying the changes essential to creating better lives for themselves and future generations. They must have access to accurate information that supports effective strategies.

The Primer answers the most frequently asked questions about, and supplies the most commonly requested information on, the Pentagon budget and U.S. military spending and is based on decades of experience in military budget analysis.

It contains 16 two-page fact sheets on topics ranging from nuclear weapons to the employment impact of U.S. military and domestic spending choices to the military cost of securing energy. We designed these fact sheets to be read separately or as a group. We have also included a host of resources: organizational contact lists, sample NPP tools, resources lists, a glossary and more.

Key findings in the primer include:

• Total spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will exceed $1 trillion February/March 2010.
• From FY 2001 to FY 2008, federal grants to state and local governments increased 0.57% for every 1% increase in total federal budget authority. Yet, during the same period, federal military expenditures increased 1.47% for every 1% in total federal budget authority. In other words, as the “budgetary pie” increased, the defense slice got bigger and fatter and the “grants to the states” slice of the pie got smaller .
• Even without including current war allocations, U.S. military spending is at its highest level since World War II. This takes into account the war-time budgets of Vietnam and Korea.
• Despite rhetoric to the contrary, the Obama Administration is not cutting defense. In fact, the Pentagon budget is projected to grow25% over the next decade.
• This is an unprecedented period in our nation’s history. Two wars, staggering national debt, the economic crisis and an impending climate crisis make these extremely challenging times. At the same time, President Obama endeavors to respond to the sweeping mandate for change.

NPP is indebted to our collaborators in this project:

• Frida Berrigan, Senior Program Associate of the Arms and Security Initiative at the New America Foundation
• Ruth Flower, Associate Executive Secretary for Legislative Programs at Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL)
• Miriam Pemberton, Peace and Security Editor of Foreign Policy in Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS)
• Heidi Garrett-Peltier, Research Assistant at the Political Economy Research Institute
• (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst
• Robert Pollin, Professor of Economics and founding Co-Director of the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst
• Susan Shaer, Executive Director of Women’s Action for New Directions (WAND)

For more information:

Jo Comerford, Executive Director (jo@nationalpriorities.org, 413.559.1649)

Chris Hellman, Director of Research (chris@nationalpriorities.org)

National Priorities Project
www.nationalpriorities.org