All Spending is Not Equal – USA Gov Policy

Attempts to corral spending often hit the wrong targets entirely. Recently, Senators Lee (R-Utah) and Paul (R-Kentucky) objected to some provisions of legislation designed to provide continuing funding designed to cover the medical costs of First Responders who developed terrible illnesses from exposure to dangerous substances in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. This is an absurd attack on a comparatively minor budget item designed to provide appropriate support for heroes who abundantly deserve it.

As every family knows, all spending is not equal. Repairing a busted roof, for example, has priority over taking a luxury vacation. They also understand that timely budgeting and planning are the most efficient ways to use income. It’s a vital practice. The federal government has yet to understand that logic.

Both Democrats and Republicans, trying not to offend any potential constituency and apparently incapable of coming to an agreement on what the national priorities should be, have engaged in ludicrous procedures that treat vital necessities, such as national defense, on the same par as the latest pork barrel project.

The most well-known manifestation of that nonsense is Budget Sequestration, a law and a concept that purportedly seeks to limit the federal budget, but in substance shields Congress from its responsibility to make hard decisions and spend wisely. It sets a hard cap on spending. The idea is that if Congress enacts annual appropriations that exceed the limit, an across-the-board spending cut is automatically imposed on general categories, affecting all departments and programs equally. The current incarnation of this ridiculous idea came into effect (it has antecedents going back to 1985) is the Budget Control Act of 2011 which came about during the Obama Administration, a period which doubled the national debt with nothing to show for all that spending. Indeed, despite slashing defense spending, and doing little to stabilize key programs such as Social Security and infrastructure repair, and despite excessively high taxes on individuals and businesses, it didn’t stop the doubling of the national debt, from about $10 trillion to approximately $20 trillion.

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The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reports that “Unless Congress and the President reach a new budget agreement, both non-defense and defense discretionary program areas will face deep cuts in 2020 and 2021, forced by tight funding limits and additional cuts… Since 2013 lawmakers of both parties have broadly agreed that the BCA-mandated caps are too low to meet national priorities in both defense and non-defense areas. To address this shortfall, Congress has enacted a series of temporary budget deals, generally lasting two years, that have increased funding above the sequestration levels. Each deal increased both the defense and non-defense discretionary caps by roughly equal amounts, recognizing that the BCA’s sequestration provision cut defense and non-defense programs by equal amounts. The most recent deal covered fiscal years 2018 and 2019. Unlike prior agreements, it fully reversed the harmful discretionary sequestration cuts and provided additional resources for new investments…”

The irrationality and political cowardice of Congress’s approach to the budget hurts the nation across the board. The inability to timely come to a broad budget agreement in compliance with sequestration results in “continuing resolutions” which, due to uncertainty and a lack of program continuity, results in higher expenses. The General Accounting Office (GAO) describes the problem: “In all but 4 of the last 40 years, Congress has passed continuing resolutions (CR) to keep agencies running between budgets. Without appropriations or a CR, the government may partially shut down. We testified that CRs, possible shutdowns, or both create uncertainty and inefficiency for agencies. For example, our past work found that agencies have reported delays and rework in contracts, grants, and hiring.”

A Heritage study of this process provides one example: “Continuing resolutions impose a considerable cost on the military’s readiness levels through loss of training time, delayed maintenance, and delayed availability of new ships.”

The point is hammered home by an American Enterprise study:

“Continuing resolutions negatively impact the military in three main ways. First, because CRs freeze individual appropriations accounts at last year’s levels, tens of billions of dollars will be misaligned. For instance, though the difference between the 2020 requested level of $750 billion and the 2019 spending level of $716 billion is only $34 billion, the actual effect of the CR is greater because the additional funding is misaligned compared to the budget request—and often at a lower level. This misalignment negatively affects all accounts, but particularly creates problems for troop training and maintenance of equipment and facilities—the core of military readiness. Near-term readiness is perishable and must be constantly maintained for the “fight tonight” or it is lost. It takes longer to rebuild readiness than to maintain it. Second, continuing resolutions do not allow the military to start new weapons programs or increase the production of existing weapons. This year, that means hundreds of new programs necessary for regaining the military’s edge against Russia and China will not be able to move forward until the CR is lifted. Third, by injecting uncertainty into every process, these spending freezes create significant sums of financial and personnel waste through duplication of work, higher prices, and contracting delays.”

Illustration: Pixabay

Quick Analysis

Ukraine’s Frozen Conflict

As we approach winter in the northern hemisphere, the war in Ukraine is beginning to resemble a “frozen conflict” from many perspectives. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently told the media he hopes the war will end faster once President-elect Trump takes over in January. Opinions in Moscow, however, differ from that of the Ukrainian leader. Russian President Vladimir Putin argues that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) needs to exclude Ukraine from joining in “exchange” for peace. If it does not, he says, then no end to the war is in sight. So far there is no Christmas solution. Several NATO countries, according to Vladimir Socor of the Jamestown Foundation, are tentatively considering “coalitions-of-the-willing” to provide security for Ukraine outside of the formal NATO framework. There is, however, no collective mechanism today under which such an arrangement is viable. According to the NATO Charter, while Ukraine is a NATO partner country, it may not join as a full member since it has not fulfilled the requirements for membership. That has not stopped NATO and allies from continuing “to provide Ukraine with unprecedented levels of support, helping to uphold its fundamental right to self-defence,” according to the organization. Socor says that keeping Ukraine out of NATO will not advance peace with Russia. Waiting for a peace settlement, he suggests, would only serve to encourage Moscow to continue the war indefinitely. Although the Biden Administration officially withdrew its support for Ukrainian membership in 2021, NATO maintains an “open door” policy toward membership-seeking countries. The current White House position led the way for European states to oppose Ukraine’s membership saying that a decision should be delayed until “conditions are met.” Biden pushed for changing “open door” to a “bridge” metaphor. It is not intended as an across-the-board NATO policy and has been implemented in the past on a case-by-case basis, says Socor. “The alliance’s open-door policy was not fully insulated from Russia’s non-statutory blocking power, and NATO-aspirant countries’ path toward membership was not always irreversible.” Russia has successfully blocked states like Georgia from joining, first in 2008 and again after the war in Ukraine began in 2014. Russia recognizes the value add of Ukraine to NATO is enormous and that Kyiv has a better case than some other nations. Putin’s invasion was, in part, intended to foreclose that option. By 2021, Moscow was pushing hard to maximize its war objectives, which included further annexations of Ukrainian territory. A main goal for Putin was, and is, to ensure there is no Ukraine left to join NATO. As President-elect Trump prepares to assume office in January, he is faced with the historical challenges presented by the war. Post-conflict security guarantees were the center of several proposals made during the 2023 military stalemate. The incoming Trump Administration has yet to outline how it intends to handle the Russia-Ukraine war. Analysts in Washington believe that the new Administration will expect its European allies to guarantee the majority of Ukraine’s security needs. As we approach 2025, several European nations have acknowledged that they do not view Ukraine as eligible for NATO membership as it would draw the organization into the middle of the conflict. Others want to wait until the war is over or pending a “peace” settlement before considering Ukrainian membership. Socor reports that some “influential voices” are suggesting that “Kyiv should join NATO after “freezing” the war along a stable armistice line, de facto accepting Ukraine’s partition, with NATO security guarantees applying de jure to the government-controlled territory only.” This would mean starting accession talks soon with the actual talks to commence only after a ceasefire is in place. Trump arrives in Washington at a time when Putin’s hybrid strategies of war in Ukraine have eviscerated commonly-held differences between war and peace. “Absent a political consensus in NATO over Ukrainian membership, certain European allies, including France’s President Emmanuel Macron, are holding informal consultations about post-conflict security guarantees to Kyiv by NATO members outside of NATO’s framework,” according to the Jamestown Foundation. The Biden Administration downplayed the discussions on possible forms of military assistance and defense industry cooperation by sending only an Assistant Secretary of State. For a European peace to hold the Trump Administration would need to formally extend the United States’ nuclear deterrence to Ukraine. Options under discussion in Europe include a “coalition of the resolute” to deploy forces to Ukraine as part of a possible armistice package, deterring further Russian attacks, says Secor. European officials are also debating, without any agreement, whether its military forces could perform non-combat logistical roles to free Ukrainian forces to fight. None of the possible courses of action has moved forward as all eyes are waiting on the incoming Trump Administration for clues about its intended level of support for a NATO framework and other non-NATO proposals. Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept.