#美国国防预算再创新高##美国国债规模越来越大, how can you pay it back?##美国国债#
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To avoid a government shutdown, Biden signed a $1.2 trillion interim spending bill on March 24, including the defense budget
How much the United States should allocate to the Department of Defense has been a highly contentious issue in the debate over government spending.
After a great deal of confusion and halfway through the fiscal year, Congress passed a bill on March 23, 2024 to allocate $825 billion to the Department of Defense in the FY 2024 budget to avoid a partial government shutdown, with the amount allocated slightly less than the $842 billion requested by the government. Not long ago, on March 11, President Joe Biden's administration submitted a budget request for 2025 to Congress, which includes an $850 billion defense budget.
However, some still say that these huge sums of money are still not enough. For example, Senator Roger Wick, Republican of Mississippi, expressed his support for increasing the defense budget to $1.4 trillion at a Heritage Foundation event, declaring that "the United States should seek to defeat China and Russia, not just try to compete with them." ”
But a trillion-dollar defense budget doesn't mean the U.S. will "win" over China or Russia, and more spending doesn't automatically equate to higher-quality defense — but this is often overlooked in debates.
In order to demand money from Congress, the US Secretary of Defense and the Chief of General Staff of the armed forces attended congressional hearings on the international budget
The United States spends more on its military than China, Russia, India, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, South Korea, Japan plus Ukraine combined. If spending is proportional to the quality of defense, national security should not be a very worrying issue now.
Michael M. of the Brookings Institution. E. O'Hanlon and Alejandra Rocha wrote: "Most people should rationally think that it is not entirely a question of quantity or which country spends more, but of quality and what we get with our money—about what military power will enable our army to maintain military superiority in the military scenario that is most important to the country." ”
Eric Gomez, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, argues that abandoning the goal of military dominance – in favor of burden-sharing with allies – and reducing personnel will help reduce military spending but still be able to cope with the demands of modern warfare.
"Containment is a more effective and cheaper strategy that better responds to small threats to the U.S. homeland and gets allies to do more to maintain stability in their own backyards," Gomez wrote. He also suggested shifting the nuclear triangle, which has the capability of land-launched, submarine-launched and air-launched nuclear bombs at the same time, to a diversion, and to phase out land-based ICBMs in favor of developing submarine-launched ICBMs and strategic bombers. This is especially important in light of the confusion in the Army's anti-missile strategy "Sentinel Program," which aims to protect the continental United States from "accidental" Russian ICBMs and "deliberate" launches of ICBMs from other countries, as well as the long delays and increased costs of updating future ICBM programs.
It's also important to note that while defense spending may appear flat on the surface, the increased spending actually paints a different picture. This is because most of the defense-related expenditures are not directly reflected in the annual budget for defense, but also include other expenditures and interest on national debt.
The total U.S. national debt has exceeded $34 trillion, with defense and war spending being one of the main reasons
A recent analysis by the Congressional Budget Office predicts that the federal government will need to pay $870 billion in interest on its debt by 2024, which is not only a 32 percent increase from 2023 interest, but also more than the defense budget. It is estimated that the interest paid by the government in 2034 will be as high as $1.628 trillion.
There are countless reasons why the U.S. deficit is rising, not least Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, but one of the biggest contributors is past war and defense spending. According to a report by Brown University's Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, the wars after 9/11 were largely supported by borrowing. "In fiscal year 2022, the U.S. government owes more than $1 trillion in interest on these wars. ”
This problem is not going away. Heidi Pelletier, a senior fellow at the Watson Institute, wrote in 2020 that "even if the United States ceases to incur any new war-related costs as of today, it will still need to continue to pay interest on its war debt in the future," and that post-9/11 war interest payments alone will reach trillions of dollars in the coming decades.
Add to that the nondiscretionary spending related to defense, such as veterans' benefits, which are separate from the defense budget, and the U.S. has surpassed the $1 trillion mark in annual defense spending.
In other words, the government is still spending and will continue to spend money on previous military activities. Policymakers would do well to keep this in mind when approving the annual defense budget.
U.S. Defense Spending Continues To Spiral Out of Control. By Varad Raigaonkar on Reason.com. April 15, 2024.
How much the U.S. should allocate to the Department of Defense remains a contentious topic in the debate over government spending.
After a great deal of chaos, on March 23—about halfway through the fiscal year—Congress approved an appropriations bill worth $825 billion for defense in FY 2024 to avoid a partial government shutdown, less than the $842 billion request by the administration. Not long before, on March 11, President Joe Biden's Administration submitted their request for FY 2025, which included $850 billion for defense.
And yet some still say those massive budgets are not enough. Sen. Roger Wicker (R–Miss.), for example, expressed support for a $1.4 trillion budget for defense at a Heritage Foundation event. "The U.S. should seek to win, not just manage, against China and Russia," he said.
But a trillion-dollar defense budget doesn't mean the U.S. will "win" against China or Russia. More spending does not automatically equate to higher quality defense—something that is often lost in this debate.
The U.S. spends more on the military than China, Russia, India, Saudi Arabia, United Kingdom, Germany, France, South Korea, Japan, and Ukraine combined. If the amount spent were directly proportional to quality of defense, national security wouldn't be much of a concern right now.
"Many would reasonably argue that it is not all about quantity or about which country spends more, but about quality and what we get for the money—about what capabilities would allow our forces to sustain military advantages for the most relevant military scenarios of importance to the nation," write Michael E. O'Hanlon and Alejandra Rocha at the Brookings Institution.
Eric Gomez, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, argues that cutting away from the goal of military dominance—instead sharing the burden with allies—and scaling down personnel would help reduce military spending while still addressing the needs of modern warfare.
"Restraint is a more effective, less expensive grand strategy that better reflects the minuscule threat to the U.S. homeland and the capacity for allies to do more to uphold stability in their own backyards," Gomez writes. He also recommends shifting away from a nuclear triad to a dyad, eliminating the land-based intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and instead developing submarine-launched ICBM and strategic bombers. This is especially pertinent after considering the mess that has been the Sentinel program, the future ICBM replacement that is running wildly off course with protracted delays and stratospheric increases in cost.
Also important to note is that while defense spending may appear to be flatlining on the surface, added context paints a different picture. Much of defense-related expenditures don't fall directly under annual fiscal budgets but are instead wrapped up in what the government pays on the national debt interest.
A recent analysis by the Congressional Budget Office projected that federal spending on debt interests alone would reach $870 billion in 2024, which is not only a 32 percent increase from 2023's interest but is larger than the defense budget itself. The projected interest payment in 2034 is $1.628 trillion.
There are myriad reasons the U.S. deficit is rising—notably Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid—but one of the biggest contributions is past spending on war and defense. According to a report from the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University, post-9/11 wars have been paid for mostly by borrowing money. "Through FY2022, the U.S. government owes over $1 trillion in interest on these wars," the report says.
That problem isn't going away. "Even if the United States were to stop incurring any new war-related expenses as of today, the U.S. would continue to make interest payments on war debt well into the future," wrote Heidi Peltier, a senior researcher at the Watson Institute, in 2020. Interest payments on these post-9/11 wars alone would reach several trillion dollars in upcoming decades.
Add to that the nondiscretionary spending on defense, like veterans benefits, which is separate from the U.S. defense budget, and annual defense spending has already crossed the $1 trillion mark.
In other words, the government is still paying for, and will continue to pay for, prior military activities. Policy makers would do well to keep that in mind when approving annual defense budgets.