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US Militarism and the National Budget

The April 10 TIMES lead headline announced that the "First Bush Budget Proposes to Raise Aid For Education," but accompanying statistics showed the education budget is a mere 14% of the military budget, which is 52% of total proposed US discretionary spending. The April 10 article does not consider the prominence of military spending; neither have articles since.

The evaporation of the post-Cold War "peace dividend" does not seem newsworthy. But it should certainly be news that since the end of the Cold War there has been a dramatic proportional increase in US military spending compared to welfare, environmental protection, worker safety, education, and such. This shift in government priorities toward the military and away from civilian services merits a headline article.

In addition, the scale of the US military budget results from US global activity, and American globalization thus appears in rather different light when the US budget's priorities are taken into account. Could US global militarism be an important part of America's global identity? The benign guise of US globalization represented by American "world business" is certainly more attractive and well-publicized; but the US budget indicates another reality.

The failure of the NY TIMES to report reponsibly on the budget this year will have been obvious to many readers; but this failure may also represent a positive commitment at the TIMES to promote a view of the post-Cold War world that is blind to global US militarism.

The Council for A Livable World makes some obvious points that seem to have been missed by the TIMES and other news broadcasters. Referring to the military budget proposed by the elder Bush, in 1992, Jeffrey R. Gerlach, a foreign policy, analyst at the Cato Institute, pointed out in an article in Policy Analysis that, "According to the Congressional Budget Office, measured in real terms, defense spending is roughly the same now as it was in the early 1960s, at the height of the Cold War." He went on to suggest that, "If approximately $280 billion was sufficient when the United States faced an adversary of great size and strength, it surely exceeds U.S. security needs now that the Soviet Union has collapsed." The disappearance of the post-Cold War "peace dividend" is one feasible hook for a good news story. Another would be the implications trade-offs attending proportionately increasing military and decreasing welfare spending. TIMES reporters often consider poverty as a new issue in the context of reduced welfare benefits; but the 1990s also witnessed another contextual shift -- toward a vast increase in the warfare budget in proportion to welfare. Robert Higgs (William E. Simon Professor of Political Economy at Lafayette College) wrote an article in 1988 that could provide useful background for a reporter today. For more information on the US military budget, see Center for Defense Information, Military Spending Working Group, and Council for a Livable World.

It should be noted, however, that data for tables and charts that follow appear on the same page as the April 10 TIMES front page story headline. This indicates that very little work is often required to use publicly available for educational purposes.


Please note the proportions involved in discussions of the US budget.

 

Dept Budget as Percent of Defense Budget

Commerce

2%

Environmental Protection

2%

Interior

3%

Labor

4%

Treasury

5%

Transportation

5%

Agriculture

6%

Energy

6%

Justice

7%

International Affairs

7%

Veterans Affairs

8%

Housing Urban Development

10%

Education

14%

Health Human Services

18%