Crunch time - Air Force Community - Air Force Times

Crunch time

Few alive can recall when our nation faced such unsettling times. Service members watch the financial turmoil battering our nation with grave interest.

Obviously, their most immediate concern is how the crisis affects their wallets. However, in recent weeks I’ve been approached by concerned young officers asking, “How will this impact the military?”

They’ve been at war for years and now another level of uncertainty has been dropped upon them. They understand the military doesn’t exist in a vacuum and are hungry for straight answers.

The straight answer is the budget outlook is grim and won’t get any better — and it will affect defense.

The federal government just spent more than $850 billion it doesn’t have to save the global economy. Unemployment raced to 6.1 percent and economists say we’ve been in a recession since last December. Tax revenues will fall and this year’s deficit may top $1 trillion. This bodes ill for a nation at war.

The Pentagon budget would face substantial challenges even in the best of times. The Navy and Air Force are struggling to modernize Cold War-era equipment while the Army and Marine Corps must grow and replace equipment worn out by a decade of combat. Health care costs are rapidly eroding the defense budget from within. Seldom has the need for defense dollars been so great, nor has the budget outlook been so bleak.

The long-term outlook is even darker.

Many in the military have never heard of David M. Walker, U.S. comptroller general under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. As America’s former senior bookkeeper his message to America is simple: We’re way over our head in debt, it’s getting worse, and time is running out.

If one took the $3 trillion federal budget and condensed it into one dollar, defense spending would be about 20 cents. Mandatory spending, mostly interest on the national debt and entitlements, takes about 50 cents; by law these take precedence over everything, including defense.

Starting in 2010, mandatory spending will devour more of that dollar until, somewhere between 2020 and 2030, there will be no revenue left for defense or anything else. Even worse, these Office of Management and Budget estimates are based on rosy economic forecasts and don’t account for anything approaching the scale of our current crisis.

A year ago, in this paper, I said the fiscal battlefield has changed forever and we must assume budgets will remain flat or shrink. Now I believe global economics and the colossal pressures on the federal budget are the true defense issues of our generation.

Our strategic outlook must revolve around this new reality. Leaders of every service should level with us about the impact these challenges will present in the coming years.

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The writer is a freelance writer living in Alabama. He is an instructor pilot and former intelligence officer. He can be reached at bull_67@yahoo.com.