Security and spending: The federal budget in 2008

By Mimi Stewart and Dede Feldman

Now that the president has proposed his budget for Fiscal Year 2009, we’d like to send him a message from our state. We’re ready to pay for security for our country, but we want you to spend those dollars wisely. It’s time to take a good, hard look at what we’re buying with our “security dollars,” and make sure we’re in fact making our country safer – not more at risk.

Let’s look at how we’re spending those dollars now. A White House online statement boasts that the new budget features “a nearly 74-percent increase since the president took office” in the Department of Defense’s base budget. What does that money buy? Of the $541 billion slated for the Pentagon in FY09 (54 percent of our discretionary budget), a whopping 90 percent goes to engaging the world through military force. Does that mean the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? Not even that. (Those are funded through “emergency” appropriations.) The money is going to high-tech weapons systems that were designed to fight the Cold War. Which ended. In 1991.

So we’re still buying weapons systems that were designed for the Cold War, such as missile defense ($11 billion for FY08) and the F/A-22 Raptor Aircraft ($3.74 billion for FY8) designed to combat advanced aircraft from the former Soviet Union that were never built.

Mr. President: The world’s security landscape has changed. Not just a little. The Soviet Union no longer exists. However, Osama Bin Laden is still conspiring to attack Americans wherever he finds them. And he will doubtless strike again. We need to defend our people against the real enemies, not the long-gone communist menace. Cold War weapons systems do not help defend us from an attack by Al Qaeda. Missile defense does not inspect the thousands of containers that come into our ports that could easily hold a dirty bomb.

We need a “security” budget that considers the real world today – not just military tools, but a whole approach to our role in the world. We need to invest in tools that will help us in today’s world and do all we can to prevent another attack. We need to restore international diplomacy and choose collaboration over conflict. And we need to pour money into the means to these ends: international peacekeeping, development banks, Peace Corps, and much more. We are wasting money on toys that aren’t relevant today while ignoring the fact that we don’t have enough foreign-language speakers.

Further, we need to rededicate ourselves to “homeland preparedness” – to making sure that when disaster strikes, we are ready to respond quickly, and to safeguard our citizens. Think what would happen if an American city were hit – either by natural disaster or by terrorists. Would our police and fire departments be adequately staffed and trained to respond at a moment’s notice? Would our elderly be ready to be evacuated?

The kicker is that we can do better – on the ground, in the international arena – without raising taxes. We just need to slice the budget pie differently. Shuffle our security dollars toward better things. Former Reagan Administration assistant secretary of defense, Lawrence Korb, has this to say: “without diminishing America’s ability to fight extremists, America can save $60 billion by eliminating Cold War-era weapons systems and programs designed to thwart the former Soviet Union – weapons and programs that are not useful in defending our country from extremists or the other threats we now face.”

But that’s not remotely what’s happening: While the president requested a 7.5 percent increase in funding for the Pentagon, his 0.3 percent increase for domestic discretionary spending falls far short of the estimated 2.8 percent rate of inflation. Therefore, programs intended to bring security to families are cut approximately 2.5 percent, not accounting for inflation. Again, President Bush has called for elimination of programs, 151 this year.

Mr. President, if you really want to address the threats of the 21st century, you’ll join us in asking for real security money and in reducing the discretionary spending that does nothing to make us safer. You’ll advocate for a security budget for today’s world – not yesterday’s.

Stewart is a Democratic state representative from Albuquerque. Feldman is a Democratic state senator from Albuquerque. This column was written in cooperation with Women’s Action for New Directions.