Congress on Military Spending Cuts: Not Now, Maybe Never

Last week Defense Secretary Robert Gates asked that Congress help pare down Pentagon costs. This week he got the answer: a loud raspberry.

One key problem is the military's skyrocketing personnel costs -- for pay, health care and generous benefits. The cost of the military's health insurance, whose premiums haven't been raised since 1995, is "eating us alive,'' Gates has said. Pay is another driver of rising costs. Both the Pentagon and Congress have lavished generous annual raises on military personnel well above increases for comparable civilian pay and wages.

This year, an Army private first class, unmarried and in the first year of his or her service, will draw $35,948 in pay with $3,355.43 of that tax-free. That's not counting a slew of other benefits, ranging from reduced-cost health care to free college courses. In contrast, the average male wage earner, 16-24 years old, earns $24,596, according to the U.S Bureau of Labor Standards.

No one, of course, would argue that young Americans who put their lives on the line should be underpaid. But that's the problem, as Gates discovered this week: It is politically popular to say yes to defense spending -- and political suicide to say no.

"Given America's difficult economic circumstances and parlous fiscal condition, military spending on things large and small can and should expect closer, harsher scrutiny," Gates said Wednesday on Fox News. "The gusher has been turned off.''

That outburst followed a more thoughtful speech he gave at the Eisenhower Library in Abilene, Kans., last Saturday, in which he pleaded for help in tempering the staggering increases in defense spending.

"To be sure, changing the way we operate and achieving substantial savings will mean overcoming steep institutional and political challenges,'' Gates said. The Pentagon's annual requests for modest increases in military health care premiums, he observed "have been met with a furious response from the Congress and veterans groups . . . and routinely die an ignominious death on Capitol Hill."

Good intentions, he said, lead Congress "routinely to add an extra half-percent to the pay raise that the department requests each year." But each half-percent adds billions to the defense budget in this-year and future costs.

And did Congress take heed?

One answer comes from the military subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee. This week the subcommittee voted a 1.9 percent military pay increase -- which included precisely the 0.5 percent that Gates had complained about -- and boosted such benefits as hostile fire pay, family separation allowances and health care benefits for veterans -- all expenses that the Pentagon had not asked for, according to Rick Maze, writing in Army Times.

Maze quoted subcommittee Chairwoman Rep. Susan Davis (D-Calif.) as saying she shares Gates' concerns about rising costs. Except for military pay.

"It is becoming painfully apparent that the extraordinary high operations tempo has exacted a high penalty on our service members and their families," she told Maze. "Although we have done much to improve existing programs and initiate new solutions, the demand to further enhance personnel and family support programs remains great.''

Meanwhile, Congress is fighting to open a $3 billion second engine production line for the F-35 jet, an expense that Gates, the Air Force, the Navy and the Marines have fought against as unnecessary.

The defense spending juggernaut rolls on . . .