Giving up on military readiness would come at a far higher cost.
Wade into any debate about escalating federal spending and deficits, and you will see calls for reducing our defense spending from both left and right. Progressives like Sen. Bernie Sanders decry that the “bloated defense budget” is crowding out other priorities and pushing deficits upward. Similarly, many on the populist right cling to Ukraine aid as a lead driver of deepening debt, with Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance going so far as to tie Ukraine aid to Social Security’s looming insolvency. Such criticisms not only exhibit a fundamental misunderstanding of federal budgeting, they also ignore looming threats to our national security and obscure the reality that America is falling behind.
Defense has long been the slowest-growing category of federal spending. Aid to Ukraine is budgetarily minor, surely temporary, often rebuilds U.S. stockpiles, and likely averts even larger defense spending hikes down the road. Even as China and Russia threaten their neighbors, American military readiness is declining due to stagnant budgets, mismanagement, and escalating costs. A vast reduction in defense spending is so unrealistic that even its leading proponents cannot design a proposal to implement it.
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Brian M. Riedl is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Follow him on Twitter here.
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