Welcome to the world of the real U.S. national security
budget. Normally, in media accounts, you hear about the Pentagon budget
and the war-fighting supplementary funds passed by Congress for our
conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. That already gets you into a
startling price range -- close to $700 billion for 2012 -- but that’s
barely more than half of it.
If Americans were ever presented with the
real bill for the total U.S. national security budget, it would
actually add up to more than $1.2 trillion a year.
Take that in for a moment.
Tomgram: Chris Hellman, $1.2 Trillion for National Security
So the big week is here as the federal budget heads for
the Washington operating table. The question in the media will be: to
shut or not to shut the government down -- and whether that shutdown is likely to happen now, two weeks from now, or in the spring
when raising the debt ceiling comes up for debate. In the meantime,
the new Republican majority in the House of Representatives is intent on
taking out fuel subsidies for the poor, federal funding for Planned Parenthood, money for National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting System, and the Maternal and Child Health Block Grant
that “supports state-based prenatal care programs and services for
children with special needs,” among many other programs, but not (as New York Times columnist Gail Collins pointed out recently) the millions of dollars the U.S. Army sinks into its “relationship” with NASCAR. The House voted down a proposal to eliminate that program a week ago by a wide margin.
Here’s the thing: the House Republicans are going after their
version of unsightly pimples on the body politic -- the programs they
and their billionaire sponsors
find ideologically unpalatable -- without seriously considering where
our money really flows. We at TomDispatch thought we might lend a hand
to Congress’s deliberations this week by offering something new: the
first real figure on what American taxpayers actually pay for the
Pentagon, the U.S. military, homeland security, our distant wars, the
care of veterans, intelligence, and every other aspect of our national
security and war state.
It’s often said that military and security expenditures make up 20%
of the federal budget. But you have to wonder about that figure when you
consider what the U.S. national security budget adds up to. Let’s
face it: what American taxpayers really fork over for “national
security” should make us all feel exceedingly insecure, as Christopher
Hellman of the National Priorities Project,
an expert on military spending, makes clear below. He offers a
startling figure that undoubtedly could have -- and should have -- been
calculated long ago by others in the media and in government (including
that freshman class of Republican congressional representatives).
Perhaps, though, Americans in Washington and out would prefer not to
know where their money is really going.
Here’s your chance. Take out your calculator and check the addition
yourself -- and prepare to be staggered. You’re the first to see
this. Don’t let this figure disappear again. (To catch Timothy
MacBain’s latest TomCast audio interview in which Hellman explains how
he arrived at his staggering numbers, click here, or download it to your iPod here.) Tom
The Real U.S. National Security Budget:
The Figure No One Wants You to See
by Chris Hellman
It’s true; you won’t find
that
figure in your daily newspaper or on your nightly newscast, but it’s no
misprint. It may even be an underestimate. In any case, it’s the real
thing when it comes to your tax dollars. The simplest way to grasp just
how Americans could pay such a staggering amount annually for
“security” is to go through what we know about the U.S. national
security budget, step by step, and add it all up.
So, here we go. Buckle your seat belt: it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
Fortunately for us, on February 14th the Obama administration officially released
its Fiscal Year (FY) 2012 budget request. Of course, it hasn’t been
passed by Congress -- even the 2011 budget hasn’t made it through that
august body yet -- but at least we have the most recent figures
available for our calculations.
For 2012, the White House has requested $558 billion for the
Pentagon’s annual “base” budget, plus an additional $118 billion to fund
military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. At $676 billion, that’s
already nothing to sneeze at, but it’s just the barest of beginnings
when it comes to what American taxpayers will actually spend on national
security. Think of it as the gigantic tip of a humongous iceberg.
To get closer to a real figure, it’s necessary to start peeking at
other parts of the federal budget where so many other pots of security
spending are squirreled away.
Missing from the Pentagon’s budget request, for example, is an
additional $19.3 billion for nuclear-weapons-related activities like
making sure our current stockpile of warheads will work as expected and
cleaning up the waste created by seven decades of developing and
producing them. That money, however, officially falls in the province
of the Department of Energy. And then, don’t forget an additional $7.8
billion that the Pentagon lumps into a “miscellaneous” category -- a
kind of department of chump change -- that is included in neither its
base budget nor those war-fighting funds.
So, even though we’re barely started, we’ve already hit a total official FY 2012 Pentagon budget request of:
$703.1 billion dollars.
Not usually included in national security spending are hundreds of
billions of dollars that American taxpayers are asked to spend to pay
for past wars, and to support our current and future national security
strategy.
For
starters, that $117.8 billion war-funding request for the Department of
Defense doesn’t include certain actual “war-related fighting” costs.
Take, for instance, the counterterrorism activities of the State
Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development. For the
first time, just as with the Pentagon budget, the FY 2012 request
divides what’s called "International Affairs" in two: that is, into an
annual "base" budget as well as funding for "Overseas Contingency
Operations" related to Iraq and Afghanistan. (In the Bush years, these
used to be called the Global War on Terror.) The State Department’s
contribution? $8.7 billion. That brings the grand but very partial
total so far to:
$711.8 billion.
The White House has also requested $71.6 billion for a post-2001
category called “homeland security” -- of which $18.1 billion is funded
through the Department of Defense. The remaining $53.5 billion goes
through various other federal accounts, including the Department of
Homeland Security ($37 billion), the Department of Health and Human
Services ($4.6 billion), and the Department of Justice ($4.6 billion).
All of it is, however, national security funding which brings our total
to:
$765.3 billion.
The U.S. intelligence budget was technically classified prior to
2007, although at roughly $40 billion annually, it was considered one of
the worst-kept secrets in Washington. Since then, as a result of
recommendations by the 9/11 Commission, Congress has required that the
government reveal the total amount spent on intelligence work related to
the National Intelligence Program (NIP).
This work done by federal agencies like the CIA and the National
Security Agency consists of keeping an eye on and trying to understand
what other nations are doing and thinking, as well as a broad range of
“covert operations” such as those being conducted in Pakistan. In this
area, we won’t have figures until FY 2012 ends. The latest NIP funding
figure we do have is $53.1 billion for FY 2010. There’s little question
that the FY 2012 figure will be higher, but let’s be safe and stick
with what we know. (Keep in mind that the government spends plenty more
on “intelligence.” Additional funds for the Military Intelligence
Program (MIP), however, are already included in the Pentagon’s 2012 base
budget and war-fighting supplemental, though we don’t know what they
are. The FY 2010 funding for MIP, again the latest figure available, was$27 billion.) In any case, add that $53.1 billion and we’re at:
$818.4 billion.
Veterans programs are an important part of the national security
budget with the projected funding figure for 2012 being $129.3 billion.
Of this, $59 billion is for veterans’ hospital and medical care, $70.3
billion for disability pensions and education programs. This category of
national security funding has been growing rapidly in recent years
because of the soaring medical-care needs of veterans of the Iraq and
Afghan wars. According to an analysis by the Congressional Budget
Office, by 2020 total funding for health-care services for veterans will
have risen another 45%-75%. In the meantime, for 2012 we’ve reached:
$947.7 billion.
If you include the part of the foreign affairs budget not directly
related to U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as
other counterterrorism operations, you have an additional $18 billion in
direct security spending. Of this, $6.6 billion is for military aid to
foreign countries, while almost $2 billion goes for “international
peacekeeping” operations. A further $709 million has been designated for
countering the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, combating
terrorism, and clearing landmines planted in regional conflicts around
the globe. This leaves us at:
$965.7 billion.
As with all federal retirees, U.S. military retirees and former
civilian Department of Defense employees receive pension benefits from
the government. The 2012 figure is $48.5 billion for military personnel,
$20 billion for those civilian employees, which means we’ve now hit:
$1,034.2 billion. (Yes, that’s $1.03 trillion!)
When the federal government lacks sufficient funds to pay all of its
obligations, it borrows. Each year, it must pay the interest on this
debt which, for FY 2012, is projected at $474.1 billion. The National
Priorities Project calculates that 39% of that, or $185 billion, comes
from borrowing related to past Pentagon spending.
Add it all together and the grand total for the known national security budget of the United States is:
$1,219.2 billion. (That’s more than $1.2 trillion.)
A country with a gross domestic product of $1.2 trillion would have the 15th largest economy in the world, ranking
between Canada and Indonesia, and ahead of Australia, Taiwan, the
Netherlands, and Saudi Arabia. Still, don’t for a second think that
$1.2 trillion is the actual grand total for what the U.S. government
spends on national security. Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
once famously spoke of
the world’s “known unknowns.” Explaining the phrase this way: “That is
to say there are things that we now know we don't know.” It’s a concept
that couldn’t apply better to the budget he once oversaw. When it
comes to U.S. national security spending, there are some relevant
numbers we know are out there, even if we simply can’t calculate them.
To take one example, how much of NASA’s proposed $18.7 billion budget
falls under national security spending? We know that the agency works
closely with the Pentagon. NASA satellite launches often occur from the
Air Force’s facilities at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and
Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The Air Force has its own
satellite launch capability, but how much of that comes as a result of
NASA technology and support? In dollars terms, we just don’t know.
Other “known unknowns” would include portions of the State Department
budget. One assumes that at least some of its diplomatic initiatives
promote our security interests. Similarly, we have no figure for the
pensions of non-Pentagon federal retirees who worked on security issues
for the Department of Homeland Security, the State Department, or the
Departments of Justice and Treasury. Nor do we have figures for the
interest on moneys borrowed to fund veterans’ benefits, among other
national security-related matters. The bill for such known unknowns
could easily run into the tens of billions of dollars annually, putting
the full national security budget over the $1.3 trillion mark or even
higher.
There’s a simple principle here. American taxpayers should know just
what they are paying for. In a restaurant, a customer would be
outraged to receive a check almost twice as high as the menu promised.
We have no idea whether the same would be true in the world of national
security spending, because Americans are never told what national
security actually means at the cash register.
Christopher Hellman is communications liaison at the National Priorities Project
in Northampton, Massachusetts. He was previously a military policy
analyst for the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, a Senior
Research Analyst at the Center for Defense Information, and spent 10
years on Capitol Hill as a congressional staffer working on national
security and foreign policy issues. He is a TomDispatch regular
and a frequent media commentator on military planning, policy, and
budgetary issues. To listen to Timothy MacBain’s latest TomCast audio
interview in which Hellman explains how he arrived at his staggering
numbers, click here, or download it to your iPod here.
[Note on Sources: The press release from the Office
of The Director of National Intelligence disclosing the Fiscal Year 2010
$53 billion intelligence budget consists of 138 words and no details,
other than that the office will disclose no details. It can be found by clicking here
(.pdf file). An October 2010 analysis by the Congressional Budget
Office entitled "Potential Costs of Veterans' Health Care" projects
rapid cost growth for Veterans Administration services over the next
decade as a result of spiraling health care costs. To read the full
report, click here (.pdf file). To see all the federal agencies that contribute to homeland security funding, click here (.pdf file)]
Copyright 2011 Christopher Hellman
