Don’t Slash the Defense Budget to Pay for COVID-19
Gary J. Schmitt
Coping with the pandemic will be a costly affair. But cutting defense spending—when China, Russia, and Iran remain significant threats—will only make us less secure.
Recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic is going to be a costly affair. On top of the already burgeoning national debt, Congress and the President will be adding trillions to it. It’s a sea of red as far as the eye can see.
With the defense budget being the largest piece of the federal discretionary spending pie, it is certain to be a target for sharp cuts. Republicans will see exploding deficits as an urgent policy matter to fix, while Democrats will be looking for any monies they can carve out to fund their ever-increasing domestic agenda. Both parties will ignore the “mandatory†side of the budget—Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, et al.—even though it now is well over 60 percent of the budget, and growing.
https://www.the-american-interest.com/2020/04/10/dont-slash-the-defense-budget-to-pay-for-covid-19/?utm-access=rcd&mc_cid=7b8abaf24f&mc_eid=ba816b4660
