What Do the Pentagon's Budget Numbers Mean?

[bemildred]

The new 2009 defense budget has just been released. The more you look into the numbers, the more things become unclear, very unclear. Most of the numbers being released today are inaccurate or incomplete, or both. Other numbers will change as the year progresses, but we do not know if they will go up or down.

The Department of Defense (DOD) says its budget request for the next fiscal year--2009 - is $515.4 billion. George W. Bush's budget as shown today by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) says the Pentagon request is $518.3 billion, a $2.9 billion difference. OMB is right; the Pentagon "forgot" to include some permanent appropriations (also called "entitlements" or "mandatory" spending) for retirement and some other non-hardware spending.

The $518.3 billion is incomplete; it does not include $70 billion requested to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But that number too is inaccurate. It does not include enough money to fight the wars for more than a few months in 2009. If the violence in Iraq stays at its recently reduced levels--or even declines - that $70 billion should be about doubled to get through the entire year. If things fall apart in Iraq and continue to deteriorate in Afghanistan, as is very likely, that 70 billion should be about tripled. In either case, the amount requested in the budget for the wars is off by $70 to $140 billion.

This barely scratches the surface of the numbers in the Pentagon's budget that are cooked by the military services, civilian managers, and budget personnel. But, to add to the confusion and obfuscation, there are other national security costs, and uncertainties, in other agency budget requests.

http://www.counterpunch.org/wheeler02052008.html

[Demeter]

1. Business As Usual At BushCo