THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, March 25, 1995 TAG: 9503240039
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A10 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Short : 48 lines
When deficit hawks captured the Republican leadership of the House and promised a balanced budget, there was no doubt that all federal spending would sooner or later wind up on the table. Even defense.
Rep. John Kasich, who heads the budget committee, announced Sunday that his party will propose a five-year freeze on defense spending at the $270 billion level. Defense hawks reacted by charging that a freeze that doesn't compensate for inflation is actually a cut.
Ironically, critics of Republican plans to slow or freeze spending on various social programs have made the same argument only to be attacked for playing semantic games. But in each case the critics are right. Spending that doesn't keep up with inflation is a cut in purchasing power whether what's purchased is submarines or school lunches.
Ordinarily the deficit hawks might have to answer the question: How much defense is enough? However, the Republican proposal is very close to the budgets proposed by the Clinton administration. Kasich would spend $1.35 trillion over five years; Clinton proposes $46 billion less, a difference of 3.4 percent. That means there's no meaningful constituency for spending in excess of $270 billion a year. The only direction defense spending can go is down.
To their credit, Republican penny pinchers have let fiscal responsibility outweigh political advantage. It will be hard to bash Clinton for trying to shortchange defense when the two sides are in virtual agreement.
As a result of geopolitical changes and fiscal imperatives, the future holds a military that's leaner, one that has to define its missions with care and purchase its weapons with prudence.
The debate will therefore shift to a more crucial question. How to spend the more limited resources available. Fierce battles within the defense establishment are likely over priorities. Research vs. procurement, weapons systems vs. readiness. Those debates have already begun.
Speaker Newt Gingrich has defined himself and his sidekicks as hawks when it comes to defense, but cheap hawks. Kasich has said of the Pentagon, ``that whole building needs to be reinvented.'' So the era of the cheap hawks has arrived and their prey is going to be business as usual. So long as the downsizing is done prudently, the change is not only fiscally necessary but justified by post-Cold War realities. by CNB