Reagan's Defense Buildup

Report Outline
Spending and Politics
Defense Cost Containment
Arms Restraint Option
Special Focus

Spending and Politics

Fiscal 1985 Budget and Five-Year Plan

Even before feb. 1, when President Reagan asked for a 13 percent increase in defense spending for fiscal 1985, it was assumed that Congress would not give him as much as he wanted. Almost everyone agreed that Reagan's request for $305 billion in spending authority for the Pentagon had to be cut, mainly to staunch the enormous budget deficits the federal government has been running up in recent years. The president himself conceded the point March 15 when he agreed to support a deficit-reduction package that would cut the increase in defense spending to slightly more than 7 percent. So far, however, there has been little serious debate about the larger security issues raised by Reagan's long-term defense program or about how, over the next five years, the country can sustain the level of spending needed to complete the military buildup he initiated in 1981.

Reagan's fiscal 1985 defense request, without correcting for inflation, is more than double the amount Congress appropriated for the Pentagon in fiscal 1980. After taking inflation into account, the fiscal 1985 request is nearly 60 percent higher than the Pentagon's fiscal 1980 appropriation. Data prepared by the Congressional Budget Office indicate that the country now is spending more on defense than it spent at the height of the Vietnam War, in constant dollars, and that it soon will be spending more than at the peak of the Korean War.

For the five-year period beginning with fiscal 1985, the Reagan defense plan calls for total expenditures of $1.9 trillion. Plainly, one of the main issues facing Americans and their elected representatives this election year is whether a continuing military buildup of this size should be bought at the cost of still greater federal borrowing, tax increases or further cuts in domestic programs. To fund Reagan's $1.9 trillion program, the average American family would be required to contribute $30,000 over the next five years, John Isaacs observed in a recent issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.