What Dick Cheney failed to tell Vermonters
about strengthening our defense

Media Release – Thursday, September 7, 2000
Contact: Rick Hubbard (802) 253-8544

Republican vice-presidential nominee Dick Cheney spoke to Vermont veterans at a gathering near the Burlington airport tonight. In his talk, he made remarks about the importance of increasing our pentagon budget to strengthen our military in the interests of our national security. He spoke of reductions in our Pentagon budget in the years since the end of the cold war, of concerns about our readiness to face likely threats from our international adversaries, and of the need for additional training and supplies to support our troops.

Rick Hubbard, Vermont native and candidate for the United States Senate had the following comments about Cheney’s talk.  “Dick Cheney certainly has the right to advocate more Pentagon spending. “Unfortunately, he chose to only tell one side of the story and did not put his comments in context.  Vermont citizens deserve to be respected with complete and balanced information on such an important issue.   Here is some of what Dick Cheney  failed to tell us, that should be considered by all Vermonters.”

According to Hubbard, our federal budget expenditures reflect our national priorities. Dick Cheney didn’t say that, currently, of every dollar of our FY-2000, $618 billion dollar federal Discretionary Budget, (the Discretionary Budget is where Congress makes all monetary decisions,  after separately accounting for entitlements such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid  and net interest on our national debt) we spend 47 cents on the Pentagon, 6 cents on education, 5 cents on health, 4 cents on the environment, and 3 cents to assist other countries. 

According to Hubbard, a month ago Congress voted even more money ($289.6 billion)  for the Pentagon budget in Fiscal Year 2001, further increasing the 47 cents of every dollar the Pentagon receives, at the expense of other important priorities, many of which are also important to our national security.

According to Hubbard, our national security is dependent upon three main components

Ø      Maintaining sufficient military strength in the world

Ø      Maintaining our economic strength in the world

Ø      Reducing the worldwide threat of conflict

Our federal budget expenditures must be appropriated wisely across all three of these components in order to maximize our national security. Dick Cheney’s comments focus primarily on only the first of the three components – our Pentagon budget.

When discussing the lower amounts of money for the Pentagon in years since the end of the cold war, Dick Cheney failed to tell us that “While global military spending has decreased dramatically since the end of the cold war, our United States military spending has increased from 30% to 36% of worldwide military spending  Source: London-based Institute for International and Strategic Studies (IISS)

Ø      1985:  World $1.2 trillion,   U.S. $360 billion (30%)

Ø      1998:  World $785 billion,   U.S. $280 billion (36%)

According to Hubbard, it is important that our military force levels be structured to meet current and emerging threats.

So, who are our potential adversaries and what do they spend on their military?

Ø      Russia  spends about $60 billion

Ø      China   spends about $40 billion

Ø      Rogues: Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Sudan, North Korea and Cuba all combined spend only about $16 billion

Ø      TOTAL  $116 billion
Source: London-based Institute for International and Strategic Studies (IISS)

How likely is it that we will go to war with one or more of them in the near future? If we do go to war, how do the amounts we each spend on our respective military budgets compare?

Ø      U.S. Alone:   We spend $280 billion  (2.5 times that of all adversaries at once – assuming no help from our allies)

Ø      U.S. + Allies: Together we spend $480 billion (4 times all adversaries at once)
Source: London-based Institute for International and Strategic Studies (IISS)

According to Hubbard, Vermonters should be aware of opinions from knowledgeable military experts who say we can re-structure our military forces in ways that maintain our national security, and potentially free up as much as $45-$50 billion dollars annually. (source:  the Military Advisory Panel of Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities: Chairman, Vice Admiral John J. Shanahan – U.S. Navy (ret.); Admiral Stansfield Turner, Former Director, Central Intelligence Agency; Dr. Lawrence Korb, Former Assistant Secretary of Defense under Ronald Regan; Ambassador Paul C. Warnke, Former Assistant Secretary of Defense and Chief U.S. Arms Negotiator)

According to these military experts, although the cold war is over, we still:

1.   Maintain the capability to fight and win 2 major wars in different hemispheres without help from our allies

Ø     Our military spending has also dropped somewhat, but not nearly as much as the rest of the world.

Ø     We continue to spread our limited defense dollars over a military force structure that still is ready to fight the cold war.

Presently, U.S. armed forces total 2,750,000

Ø      1,381,000 active duty

Ø      1,369,300 Reserves and Guard

Ø      1990-1991 Persian Gulf War required 665,476 troops

Our current troop strength is 4 times larger

Since the Persian Gulf war  there have been:

Ø      39 incidents of overseas deployments averaging 5,000 military personnel per incident  (largest was about 32,000 – 1/88th of our total forces today)  

2.   Are in an arms race with ourselves to replace weapons that are still the best in the world with newer and more expensive replacements

Ø      We currently have about 3,200 F-15 & F-16 fighter jets –  the best in the world. No other country has anything on the drawing boards to clearly surpass them.

Ø      The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) says the oldest of these could be replaced with upgraded new ones for about $2.7 billion over the next 10 years.

Ø      Instead Congress is replacing them with new and very expensive alternatives. Congress caps the new F-22’s at $62.7 billion and the Joint Strike Fighter at $219 billion (together $281 billion – over 100 times more costly)

3.  Maintain a nuclear arsenal of about 8,500 warheads when 1000 would destroy the key strategic targets of ALL our likely adversaries four times over

These military advisors say we can:

Ø      Replace current pentagon 2-war fighting strategy with a one war plus Bosnia style peacekeeping capability (Save $21 billion annually)

Ø      Reduce our force of active strategic weapons to a level of 1000 warheads (Save $15 billion annually)

Ø      Cut production of expensive new weapons that are of marginal strategic and tactical value in relation to current and projected threats (Save $12.5 billion annually)

Ø      Close unnecessary military bases as recommended by the pentagon (Save $3 billion annually)

According to Hubbard, “by shifting these amounts within our federal budget:

Ø      We can take our soldiers off food stamps and provide them with adequate training and supplies. We should refocus these resources on supporting our troops.

Ø      We can work more cooperatively with other countries, which will reduce threats from abroad and strengthen our national security.

Ø      We can improve our educational achievement, especially in the areas of math and science, which support technology and strengthen both our economic and our national security.

According to Hubbard, shifting our budget priorities in these ways will strengthen our overall national security. Currently, big campaign contributions to Congress help to lock in these big expenditures on expensive new weapons systems of marginal strategic benefit, at the expense of other priorities.

Hubbard added, broad and comprehensive campaign finance reform is the key to triggering such a major shift in our national priorities. Most Americans don’t want Congress making decisions on our national priorities based on which interest groups will offer huge amounts of money to help with the next election. Increasingly, we understand alliances between politicians and these groups can defer, misdirect, and block legislation and major revisions of our national priorities, even when they are in the common interests of most Americans.

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