Our National Defense Strategy identifies China as the primary challenge to the United States. To confront this threat successfully, our military needs more warships, aircraft and munitions. Now.<\/p>\n
But the Biden administration\u2019s spending does not match its defense strategy. The president\u2019s Emergency Supplemental Request made this clear by asking for $61.4 billion for Ukraine, but only $5.4 billion for the Indo-Pacific. In addition, the administration has made no attempt to cut spending elsewhere in the budget to help fund any part of the supplemental.<\/p>\n
There are many ways money can be saved within the Department of Defense, from programs<\/a> that could be cut altogether, to reforms<\/a> that would make the department spend money more efficiently. Non-defense spending from within research and development, politicized spending on climate change and DEI, and wasteful bureaucratic bloat are all examples of Pentagon funding that needs to be re-allocated toward building actual military capacity.<\/p>\n While some of the money necessary to pay for the military systems we need to deter China be found within the Defense Department\u2019s budget, there\u2019s far more available elsewhere\u2014in the wasteful spending that occurs across the federal budget.<\/p>\n What should this money go toward? Virginia class submarines, for starters. These subs have been identified as one of the most important assets needed to deter China in the Western Pacific. But they don\u2019t come cheap. In Fiscal Year 2023, they cost around $3.4 billion<\/a> each. (The cost varies<\/a> depending on additional systems installed. Moreover, the cost per unit goes down if more than one is purchased at a time).<\/p>\n The new Constellation class of guided missile frigates are also crucial to the mission in the Indo-Pacific. They cost around $ 1.1 billion<\/a> each, depending on the same variables.<\/p>\n If Congress is serious about funding a military capable of deterring China, plenty of big-ticket items outside the defense budget could be cut and reallocated to real military capacity.<\/p>\n For fiscal year 2024, the Biden administration requested $3.9 billion<\/a> for the Department of Homeland Security\u2019s climate resilience programs, $10 billion<\/a> in mandatory funding for a new First Generation Down Payment Assistance program to \u201chelp address racial and ethnic home ownership and wealth gaps,\u201d $3 billion<\/a> for the State Department\u2019s Green Climate Fund and Clean Technology Fund within the President\u2019s Emergency Plan for Adaptation and Resilience (climate change money for foreign countries), $3 billion<\/a> in Environmental and Climate Justice Block Grants, etc. etc.<\/p>\n This administration\u2019s Department of Homeland Security is paying $2.5 billion<\/a> to house illegal immigrants, while spending only about $56 million<\/a> to maintain family housing facilities for military service members. That money would be better spent on submarines or frigates.<\/p>\n Within the Defense Department budget itself, for fiscal year 2024 the Biden administration requested $5.1 billion to \u201cmitigate climate risk.\u201d Jamming this sort of non-defense, politicized spending into the defense budget is especially egregious. The department\u2019s mission is to protect American national security interests, and these wasteful initiatives distract the military from carrying out its core mission.<\/p>\n