By Emelie Rutherford
New research predicts lawmakers will resist Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ proposed Pentagon budget savings because of the coming 2012 elections.
One of the first hot military debates in Congress after the summer recess concludes in two weeks will be over Gates’ so-called efficiency initiative, which the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) plans to scrutinize.
According to University of Alabama at Birmingham Assistant Professor of Sociology Casey Borch, congressional opposition to Gates’ proposed reductions will be strong because of the national elections in two years.
Borch studied military spending in states over the past four decades and found such expenditures increased on average approximately 9 percent the year before national elections.
“Historically, about a year or two before national elections you can see a fairly substantial increase in military spending,” he said. “During an election year and immediately after an election year is when military spending is reduced.”
The professor expressed doubt in the success of the efficiency initiatives Gates proposed Aug. 9, which include the elimination of U.S. Joint Forces Command and an annual 10 percent reduction in service-support contractors for each of the next three years.
The efficiency effort is intended to yield $100 billion in savings over five years, money Pentagon leaders hope to use to maintain 2 percent to 3 annual real growth for warfighting capabilities.
“To cut military spending on contracts when we have a relatively weak economy doesn’t seem to be a strategy that would be politically or economically useful,” Borch said.
States with congressmen and senators on armed-services panels see significant increases in military spending funneled to them, according to Borch’s research. States with a legislator on the House or Senate armed services committees on average receive $120 million more in military spending than a state without a lawmaker on either panel, he said, while states with two lawmakers on either or both committees garner double that amount, he said.
“And the longer a congressman serves on the committee, the more funds they bring to the state,” he said. The research, also conducted by professors at the University of Connecticut, additionally found states that backed the winning presidential candidate usually receive increased levels of military spending.
For this fall’s elections, polls indicate most congressional leaders of defense panels up for reelection will easily keep their seats, with the exception of House Armed Services Committee (HASC) Chairman Ike Skelton (D-Mo.)
Skelton, a 17-term congressman, is facing what observers say is his toughest reelection fight in years from Republican Vicky Hartzler. The race is being watched on the national level as the political climate has turned against incumbent Democrats in some parts of the country. And Skelton has been touting his military ties.
The Cook Political Report and The Rothenberg Political Report both peg the race for Missouri’s fourth congressional district as leaning toward the Democrat. By contrast, polling organizations predict easy reelections for HASC Ranking Member Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-Calif.), House Appropriations Defense subcommittee (HAC-D) Chairman Norm Dicks (D-Wash.), and HAC-D Ranking Member C.W. “Bill” Young (R-Fla.), as well as Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) and SASC Ranking Member John McCain (R-Ariz.). SAC Ranking Member Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) and SASC Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) are not up for reelection this year.
When President Barack Obama addressed the nation Tuesday night about the end of combat operations in Iraq, he emphasized a desire to focus on domestic spending matters.
“So at this moment, as we wind down the war in Iraq, we must tackle those challenges at home with as much energy and grit and sense of common purpose as our men and women in uniform who have served abroad,” Obama said.
“Our most urgent task is to restore our economy and put the millions of Americans who’ve lost their jobs back to work,” the president said.
He called for supporting veterans, focusing on education and workforce training, jumpstarting “industries that create jobs,” ending the nation’s dependence on foreign oil, spurring innovation, and aiding entrepreneurs.
“This will be difficult,” Obama said. “But in the days to come, it must be our central mission as a people and my central responsibility as president.”
Obama will be up for reelection in 2012.