Tag Archives: Budget

Budget Spin for Dummies

Not that we’re calling you a dummy…

0In his talk at the U.S. Naval Warfare Development Command last Friday, CDR Bryan McGrath (ret.) made some important assertions about the affordability of our Navy in the context of the Federal Budget. At about the five minute point, he describes what he envisions as the ideal Navy to meet the United States’ security needs and proposes that it would cost about $25 Billion more than what we currently spend. He then goes on to place $25 Billion in context:

$25 Billion Dollars is:

  • 4.6% of the base Defense budget
  • 1.9% of the National budget
  • 0.16% of projected GDP

“…so don’t tell me we can’t afford a bigger Navy,” commands McGrath. “We can afford it. We choose not to have a bigger Navy.”

If we’re going to talk about government spending, it is important to make sure we’re all reading from the same sheet of music. DoD advocates like CDR McGrath assert that the portion of national treasure we’re willing to invest in Defense is approaching record lows. Defense spending critics suggest that even in spite of cuts, we are throwing more money at DoD than at almost any point in history, to include the heights of the Cold War arms races. They are all correct; whether we are at a low point or a high point in defense spending is entirely subject to the frame of reference. Which reference we choose will invariably be determined by our motives.

Discussions of Defense spending are generally framed in one of three ways:

1. Defense Spending as a Function of Dollars Spent

It’s hard to argue with cold hard cash. The money we spend on Defense has grown at an accelerating rate over the last century:

1

However convincing this graph is at first glance, you’ll find that only the most hyperbolic of critics of Defense spending will rest their argument on it. It is based on nominal or “actual” dollars spent, which do not account for the erosion of purchasing power that is inflation. We can correct for inflation by selecting a “base year” and then adjusting the dollar amounts at every other point to the purchasing power of an equivalent sum of money in the base year. Using 2014 as the base year, our corrected graph of defense spending looks more like this:

2

The blue line indicates what Defense spending would have been if the purchasing power of a dollar had always been equal to its 2014 value. While spending has oscillated pretty widely, the overall trend is positive: the price, presumably, of steady growth in things like technological complexity, personnel benefits, veteran health care, and administrative overhead. One major source of contention when framing arguments around inflation-adjusted dollars is exactly which rate of inflation is correct. Economists do not all agree, and DoD claims yet another rate of inflation from the economy at large due to a variety of factors.

2. Defense Spending as a Function of Resource Allocation

We’ve all seen a graph like this:

3

We can’t even balance the budget, and we’re spending over half of it on the military!? Preposterous!

Are we really, though? Pay attention to the title: this graph shows “Discretionary Spending,” which is that portion of the federal budget that is determined by Congress through an appropriations bill. This is opposed to “Mandatory Spending,” which is the outlay of government funds required by law. If we include Mandatory Spending, allocation of federal spending will look more like this:

4

Mandatory Spending is effectively made up of entitlement programs. It is important to point out that in the fiscal sense, “entitlement” is not the sense of privilege attributed to Millennials by the previous generations. Entitlement is a technical term which describes expenditures which are not limited by any budget, but instead are a function of the number of people who qualify for them and the expenses incurred by the services promised. Because they don’t need to be re-approved every year, unlike discretionary spending, most entitlement expenditures will grow uncontrollably without a change in the law.

3. Defense Spending as a Function of Economic Output

Described in terms of Gross Domestic Product, or the total economic output of the United States, Defense spending looks something like this:

5

The graph illustrates a downward trend in economic capacity committed to the military. Most DoD budget people will describe Defense spending in terms of GDP, ostensibly because it most accurately conveys economic burden. Bryan McGrath described his ideal Navy in terms of dollars, and then convincingly justified his position in terms of GDP.

Critics argue that using GDP as a yardstick merely serves the purposes of those who would seek more money by obfuscating actual dollar costs. Making sense of what is spent is made even more difficult by fluctuations in the denominator: GDP can vary wildly from year to year, which would appear on this graph as drastic changes to Defense spending.  Yet another argument against measuring spending by GDP is that GDP is an estimate at best, and there is much disagreement between economists as to how it should be measured.

Bringing it All Together

If we lay out the various methods of describing Defense spending on the same graph, we get something like this:

6

As you can see, Defense spending can look completely different depending on how it is framed.  It can be described as a dollar cost, a portion of federal spending, or a portion of economic output.  Each perspective illustrates important information that the others fail to address, and each one can be abused to promote an agenda.

LT Will Spears, USN, is an Active duty submariner; post-JO shore duty type. His last tour was aboard a WESTPAC Fast-Attack; he is now at NPS focusing on family and personal development. He is the author of the leadership blog JO Rules.

Note: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the U.S. Navy, the Department of Defense, or the Center for International Maritime Security.

Sequestration: America’s Great Harbor

For the Athenians, the Great Harbor of Syracuse was anything but.  A monument to the Athenian tactic of bottle-necking of the “world’s” most powerful navy, the battle at the Great Harbor symbolizes the cost of trading mobility for convenience.  Today, the five carriers lined up in Norfolk like dominoes are reminiscent of that inflexibility, serving as a greater metaphor for constraints the fiscal crisis may impose on the U.S. Navy worldwide.

A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed after the enemy has finished exterminating your entire naval task force and running you to ground in a quarry where you are executed or sold off as spoils of war." -General Patton
“A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed after the enemy has finished exterminating your entire naval task force and running you to ground in a quarry where you are executed or sold off as spoils of war.”
– General Patton, sort of

During the siege of Syracuse, the Athenian expedition anchored its naval task force inside the protected Great Harbor of Syracuse.  Maintaining such a large force in a single place and at anchor decreased the costs of manning and command and control (C2).  The single entrance of the harbor and its copious defenses against wind and wave also simplified the fleet’s maintenance and logistics.  The convenience came at heavy cost.  The fleet’s great numerical advantage was lessened by lack of mobility.  Infrequent patrols allowed the Athenians to deploy navigational hazards and blockade runners.  Syracuse’s superficially low-cost, reactive approach lost to the proactivity of the enemy.  The harbor’s single entrance turned into a nightmare scenario as the massive fleet was locked into the harbor by a chain of ships strung across the entrance.  The fleet of the mightiest naval power in the world died in a Sicilian quarry without a single ship remaining.

One stone? Don't worry, we're way past two birds.
One stone? Don’t worry, we’re way past two birds.

America’s Great Harbor is not in a foreign land, but up Thimble Shoals Channel and through the gap in the Hampton Roads beltway.  Five carriers, the world’s most powerful collection of conventional naval power in one location, sit idle at harbor, one beside the other.  The United States maintains a massive naval center of gravity, within a single chokepoint that could be plugged at a moment’s notice in prelude to further enemy action.  The concentration not only lends itself to easy containment, but simplifies the potential for espionage and terrorism.  The fiscal noose tightening around the Navy’s neck is creating a prime target that goes against every lesson we’ve learned from Pearl Harbor to Yemen.

America’s Great Harbor is a vicarious manifestation of a more terrifying fleet-wide atrophy.  Sequestration will force the navy into a fiscal Great Harbor.  A 55% decrease in Middle Eastern operational flights, a 100% cut in South American deployments, a 100% cut in non-BMD Mediterranean deployments, cutting all exercises, cutting all non-deployed operations unassociated with pre-deployment workups, as well as a slew of major cuts to training – these further compound the losses from the Navy’s previous evisceration of the training regime.  Despite a growing trend of worries about fleet maintenance, a half year of aircraft maintenance and 23 ship availabilities will be cancelled.  The snowballing impact on already suffering training and maintenance will further exacerbate that diminishing return on size and quality created by the fiscal Great Harbor.  Nations like China and Iran continue to make great strides in countering a force that will recede in reach, proficiency, and awareness.  The mighty U.S. Navy is forced to sit at anchor while the forces arrayed against her build a wall across the harbor mouth.

What directionless security assistance program? All I see is dancing kids!
What directionless security assistance program? All I see is dancing kids!

Military leadership has done a poor to terrible job advocating the true cost of defense cuts.  A series of actions by the brass has undermined their credibility and covered up the problem.  The blinders-on advocation for teetering problems like LCS and the F-35 have undermined the trust that military leadership either needs or can handle money for project development.  The Navy personnel cuts were pushed for hard by leadership, and when the Navy grossly overshot its target, the alarms were much quieter than the advocation; the ensuing problems were left unadvertised.  In general, military-wide leadership uses public affairs not to inform, but as a method to keep too positive a spin in a misguided attempt to keep the public faith.   That public faith has removed vital necessary support in a time when the military is rife with problems that absolutely require funding.  The PAO white-wash helps under-achieving programs and leadership get passed over by the critical eye.  Where Athenian leaders were frank with their supporters at home, stubbornness and inappropriate positivity have undercut military leadership’s ability break loose from the fiscal harbor.

China's sequestration mostly involves disposing of excess DF-21D's into carrier-shaped holes in the desert.
China’s sequestration mostly involves disposing of excess DF-21D’s into carrier-shaped holes in the desert.

Those who dismiss the hazard of sequestration are wrong in the extreme.  When I was an NROTC midshipman, I remember a map on the wall of the supply building: a 1988 chart of all US Navy bases around the world.  Today’s relative paucity of reach leads some to believe that surviving one scaling back shows inoculation against another.  However, the law of diminishing returns has a dangerous inverse.  Each progressive cut becomes ever more damaging.  The U.S. Navy and sequestration apologists must realize what dangerous waters the Navy is being forced to anchor in.  The question is, how long can the navy safely stay in the Great Harbor before her enemies get the best of her?

Matt Hipple is a surface warfare officer in the U.S. Navy.  The opinions and views expressed in this post are his alone and are presented in his personal capacity.  They do not necessarily represent the views of U.S. Department of Defense or the U.S. Navy, although he wishes they did.

Pentagon Announces Sequestration Scenario for Navy

International Maritime Satire Week Warning: The following is a piece of fiction intended to elicit insight through the use of satire and written by those who do not make a living being funny – so it’s not serious and very well might not be funny.  Our apologies to those who read this without the warning and mistakenly believed it to be true. 

The expensive military officers and civilian strategists in the AirSea Battle Office will be outsourced to members of “Earth, Wind & Fire” as part of the Pentagon’s efforts to meet the budget cuts imposed by sequestration.

Due to the looming threat of congressionally mandated spending cuts known as sequestration, the Pentagon today outlined how the drastic decrease in funds would impact the sea service:

– US Naval Academy shuttered – Midshipman curriculum to consist of  instructional training video “Annapolis”

– The next Arleigh Burke-class destroyers will be named USS Comcast (DDG 117) and USS Verizon (DDG 118) in a landmark sponsorship/naming rights deal

– Services’ Unfunded Requirements Lists posted to Kickstarter

– AirSea strategy outsourced to members of “Earth, Wind & Fire” 

– Navy SEALS will moonlight as personal trainers and facilities attendants at fleet recreation centers and gyms

– Littoral Combat Ship production line replaced with Literal Pocket Battleships

– Latest Aegis upgrades to include dual-sided 8×8 peg boards; sound effects

– Navy’s contribution to the interservice F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program to consist of home-made cookies and punch at meetings

– Carrier pigeons will augment carrier fleet

– Racing stripes stand in for scheduled F-18 Super Hornet upgrades

– Taking cue from NASCAR, Navy to sell advertising space on warships

– Forced to scrap railgun program, the Office of Naval Reasearch will keep excitement about future weapons alive by testing railroad guns aboard fleet surface vessels

– “Pivot to the Pacific” rebranded the “Amble to Asia”

– Galley cooks will serve dual-duty as galley oarsmen

– Retirement pension after 20 years of service cut in favor of coupon book for service-members in their fleet concentration area of choice

– Fleet shipbuilding plan will include lifeboats in its 300 ship Navy total

SECNAV Scrambles to Find Chit for 2 Trillion Dollars

International Maritime Satire Week Warning: The following is a piece of fiction intended to elicit insight through the use of satire and written by those who do not make a living being funny – so it’s not serious and very well might not be funny.  Our apologies to those who read this without the warning and mistakenly believed it to be true. 

Sources in SECNAV’s office are positive a request for a $2 trillion plus-up is around here, somewhere.

Revelations from last week’s presidential debate have put Secretary Ray Maybus’ office into a tailspin. During the debate, President Obama’s stated that Mitt Romney planned to provide, “two trillion dollars in additional military spending that the military hasn’t asked for.”

“I could have sworn I left the special request chit in the SecDef’s inbox,” said Secretary Maybus. The Office of the Secretary of Defense has announced it only received four Christmas Leave chits, a duty-swap chit, and hasn’t seen any special request chits for more money.

“I know I turned it in to SECNAV,” said Chief of Naval Operatons, Admiral Jonathan Greenert, “I put two folders in the Secretary’s inbox. One was for Christmas Leave and the other a request for EXACTLY 2 Trillion dollars. I remember, because I almost left my leave chit in the wrong folder. I’m taking second leave, since usually the first standown period is more relaxed.”

The mystery of the missing lion’s share of Christmas leave chits, as well as the special request chit for 2 trillion dollars, has puzzled many. OPNAV reports turning in at least 160,523 chits for Christmas stand-down. Reportedly, three personnel elected to skip leave altogether due to a low balance of leave days. An unamed insider suggests that, if they just find the rest of those chits, the special request for money will be with it.

This is not the first time major budget-related chits have been lost close to leave periods. Before Thanksgiving in 2010, the OPNAV Office of Assesment (N81) signed and routed up a chit to cancel the Littoral Combat Ship program due to the discovery that it was “total garbage.”

“Imagine our surprise,” said N81’s former head, Rear Admiral Zapp Brannigan, “we thought we cancelled the project, but return from leave to discover they’re building not one, but both those disasters. Maybe they misread our request.”