Pentagon’s Go-To Excuse for Spending: Readiness Crisis
On March 16, Rep. Michael Turner (R-OH) held a hearing of his Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee focusing on what he depicts as Pentagon readiness problems.
In a March 1 letter to House Speaker Ryan, Rep. Turner wrote in support of President Trump’s budget proposals, “We must afford our President the ability to restore military readiness.”
His solution is to pump many additional billions of dollars into the Pentagon budget beyond the recent request of President Donald Trump.
He has been joined in this campaign by House Armed Services Committee Chair Mac Thornberry (R-TX), who emphasized the readiness crisis in a discussion at the Heritage Foundation.
In fact, Rep. Turner and his colleagues are running a deceptive campaign to generate support for hiking the Pentagon budget.
The public should not fall for it.
Take the word of no less an authority than Robert Hale, former Defense Department comptroller, who suggested that the public should be skeptical of the dire warnings of a readiness crisis. While conceding that there are some shortfalls of spare parts and training, he suggested, “This is a time when the services, if you will, want to put their worst foot forward.”
Or listen to one of the nation’s most distinguished military leaders, Retired Army General and former C.I.A. Director David Petraeus. Petraeus, writing along with Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution, concluded in a Wall Street Journal Op-Ed last August, “While there are areas of concern, there is no crisis in military readiness.”
They stated emphatically, “America’s fighting forces remain ready for battle.”
They also pointed out that despite modest Pentagon budget reductions in recent years, the current budget of about $600 billion a year is much higher (in constant dollars) than during the Cold War.
If you are still not convinced, then take a look at the concluding remarks at the end of last year’s annual national defense authorization bill by House Armed Services Committee ranking Democrat Adam Smith (D-WA).
He noted the voluminous stories about the “terrible state of our readiness.” But he pointed the finger of suspicion back directly at Congress. As the House wrapped up consideration of the defense bill, he argued that for the past four years, Congress “has put less money into readiness than the president has asked for.”
“Why,” asked Rep. Smith? Because Members want to fund a wide variety of pet weapons programs plus the trillion dollar nuclear modernization program.
With President Trump in the White House, Rep. Smith has doubled down on his critique. He pointed to the President’s freeze on federal hiring in January as “bait-and-switch.” Smith argued that last year’s defense authorization bill provided the Pentagon flexibility to help with the maintenance backlog. “Now, under President Trump’s readiness-killing hiring freeze, these authorities cannot be used.”
There is one further complication with the Turner-Thornberry quest of additional dollars. No one, not even Pentagon officials, have any clear idea of how much and how the Pentagon is spending its money.
In a July 26, 2016 report, the Pentagon’s Office of Inspector General reported that the US Army had $6.5 trillion in unaccountable budgetary adjustments to balance their books. And that’s just the Army.
Of course the Pentagon still cannot pass an audit of its books required of all federal agencies. Congress has tried time and again to lay down the law with the Pentagon, but our military leaders plead nolo contendere — guilty without admitting guilt.
Is there a readiness crisis? Until the Pentagon can pass an audit, it can’t reliably account for its readiness funding.
