The military budget and readiness

Many people are concerned our military is shrinking to dangerous levels. Unfortunately many have no understanding about who determines what the end strength of each branch of the military will be.

The Defense budget, like all personnel, equipment and materials matters, are controlled by the Congress. The president submits a budget request, and the Congress debates and decides the amount of each line item in the budget. If no agreement can be reached on specific items in the budget, Congress will often break up the total defense budget request and vote some things for emergency expenditures. Among other things, this allows our ships to sail, aircraft to fly, and our troops to be paid.

The process begun when budgets cannot be reached is called sequestration, and it was approved in 1985 as a means of forcing compromise and agreement in Congress when Congress cannot write a budget. Sequestration began in 2011 as Congress deadlocked over the budget. The result was that all agencies of the federal government began to suffer automatic cuts in their budgets.

The original thoughts behind authorizing sequestration were that these automatic cuts would damage some unintended areas of the federal government, and Congress would step up to the challenge. This is what happened to the Defense Department and all branches of the military except Congress did not step up. By the way congressional salaries are exempt from sequestration cuts.

Sequestration cuts mean our military will not have the weapons and training to meet a well-armed modern military. Writing for the Heritage Foundation, Richard K. Dunn said, "It is far better to learn the lessons of history than to repeat them. A decade of war, an antiquated and lethargic defense acquisition system, and now a national budget crisis are already putting combat readiness at risk." We need statesmen of vision and courage to understand the readiness challenges and to provide the leadership to overcome them before some unforeseen crisis once again makes them all too apparent.

Jack Dragoni attended Boston College and served in the U.S. Army in Berlin and Vietnam. He lives in Chaffee, Missouri.