Post-Cold War Defense Spending Cuts: A Bipartisan Decision
Steven Kosiak & Elizabeth Heeter
Published 08/31/2000
Highlight
The question of who is responsible for the substantial reductions in defense spending that occurred in the 1990s has arisen as an issue in the 2000 presidential campaign. A strong case can be made that these cuts were an appropriate response to the end of the Cold War and efforts to bring the federal deficit under control. But, more importantly, whatever the merits of the defense drawdown of the 1990s, one thing is clear: the decision to cut the defense budget, and to do so relatively deeply, was very much a bipartisan decision. Among other things, CSBA finds that:
- The post-Cold War decline in defense spending began during the Bush Administration.
- There is almost no difference between the level of funding proposed for defense by President Bush in his last fiscal year (FY) 1994-99 budget plan and the level of funding actually provided for defense over this six-year period under the Clinton Administration. Both Bush planned funding and actual funding amounted to $1.72 trillion (in FY 2001 dollars).
- Congressional add-ons since 1995, when the Republican Party gained control of both houses, account for only about 3 percent of the defense topline of the past six years.
- Not only was the drawdown of the 1990s clearly a bipartisan affair, the best available evidence suggests that Democrats and Republicans are still remarkably close in terms of their support for defense spending. Under the latest Clinton Administration plan, funding for defense is projected to remain essentially flat in real (inflation-adjusted) terms through fiscal year (FY) 2005. The latest Congressional Budget Resolution (CBR) would provide only about one-third of 1 percent more over this period. In reality, the effectiveness with which the Department of Defense (DoD) is able to address US security challenges in the future is likely to depend much more on how wisely DoD spends than how much it spends.
http://www.csbaonline.org/4Publications/Archive/H.20000831.Post-Cold_War_Defe/H.20000831.Post-Cold_War_Defe.htm
