Fact Check: Ron Paul is Wrong About Defense Spending

Sequestration imposes real cuts on the military, not just baseline cuts 

During last week’s foreign policy debate, Ron Paul won accolades from the crowd when he professed that there are no real pending cuts to the military, just reductions in baseline spending.  Here is the full quote:
“Believe me. They’re cutting — they’re nibbling away at baseline budgeting, and its automatic increases. There’s nothing cut against the military. And the people on the Hill are nearly hysterical because they’re not going — the budget isn’t going up as rapidly as they want it to. It’s a road to disaster. We had better wake up.”

This statement is absolutely false.  Sequestration will indeed reduce military spending from ‘actual dollar amounts’ of FY 2011 spending levels over the next seven years.

In order to understand defense appropriations, we need to distinguish between the two categories of spending; base budget (ships, planes, weapons, troops) and Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO).  Using CBO’s numbers, roughly $703 billion (the DOD Comptroller’s office puts that number at $688 billion) was spent on total defense spending, with $552 billion allocated for base budget (true national defense) and the rest going toward the wars (OCO).  When preparing a 10-year budget for defense spending, OCO appropriations are hard to predict because our war spending vacillates with our foreign policy decisions.  Only the base budget figures are truly fixed into the budget, just like most domestic non-security expenditures.  Consequently, whenever we mention the estimated $1 trillion in defense cuts, remember that they are exclusively incurred by the base budget, aka the military, not the war budget.

So what will the ten-year budget projection of our base defense budget look like after sequestration?  Here are the results from the latest CBO report (CBO Testimony, October 26, pages 18-19):

The Non-Existent Spending Cuts…Except for Defense

Yesterday, we observed the unique spectacle of a socialist president threatening to veto any bill that reinstates higher levels of spending.  Did Obama just experience an epiphany?

No.  We are merely talking about cuts in defense spending.  Those are the good kind of cuts.

Throughout the entire supercommittee imbroglio, whenever Democrats or members of the media referred to spending cuts – to the extent that they exist – they were referring to baseline cuts.  In other words, the cuts in discretionary spending will still enable the spending levels to rise each subsequent year, albeit at a slower pace.  Welfare and entitlement spending is exempt from all cuts, even baseline reductions.  Defense, on the other hand, will actually incur real reductions in 'actual dollar' spending in subsequent years.

House Armed Services Committee Republican Staff

Current Status of Spending Bills

The Heritage Foundation has a useful chart out today detailing the current status of apprpriations bills:

Despite thefact that the topline spending figure is already locked in at $1.043 trillion, there is still wiggle room for Democrats to add more spending to their priorities.  How will they accomplish this?  By cutting defense spending, of course.  They plan to cut military spending by $17 billion, while adding more spending to health, labor, and food programs.  Republicans must fight for the House-passed bill during conference committee next week.

Key votes on Abortion, DADT, START, and Gitmo This Week

Today's House Action Alerts.

Today, the House will consider two bills with some amendments that are important to conservatives.

 Abortion

After a period of morning speeches, the House will finish work on H.R. 1216- the fourth bill brought to the floor that defunds mandatory appropriations for an Obamacare program.  This bill rescinds all unobligated funds for graduate medical training programs created under Obamacare.  It also subjects the remaining appropriations to the annual discretionary spending process.  This will prevent the program from becoming a mandatory slush fund for Democrat special interests.

The critical vote on this bill is the Foxx Amendment (H. AMDT. 298, which prohibits funding for graduate medical institutions to be used for the purpose of training medical residents in abortion procedures.  Please call you member of Congress and request a yes vote on the Foxx anti-abortion Amendment. 

Defense

After work on H.R. 1216 is complete, the House will begin debating the FY 2012 Defense Authorization Act (H.R. 1540); along with a marathon amendment process which calls for votes on 152 amendments.  That means that we must watch the floor vigilantly.