Congressman Frank’s Plan To Reduce Military Spending

1. Withdrawal From Iraq:

A timely withdrawal from Iraq could create $105 billon in savings in year one, if the recommendations from Center for American Progress report "Building a Military for the 21st Century" are followed.

At the present time, the United States is spending about $10 billion a month to maintain over 140,000 troops a year in Iraq and $2 billion a month to support 34,000 American troops in Afghanistan. If President Obama withdraws all combat brigades from Iraq over the January 2009 to April 2010 period, this would decrease the U.S. presence by about 50,000, or about 36 percent, and reduce the cost to about $7 billion a month by mid-2010.

If the withdrawal of combat troops is accompanied by a withdrawal of an equal number of support troops, this would mean that the costs would drop to about $4 billion a month. If all American troops are withdrawn by the end of calendar year 2011, as the Status of Forces Agreement mandates, the costs would drop to zero by the second quarter of FY 2012.

Adding another 20,000 troops to Afghanistan, as requested by General McKiernan, would increase the costs in that theatre by at least $1.5 billion a month. Thus, the savings from a drawdown from Iraq accompanied by an increase in Afghanistan would result in a net savings of about $2.5 billion a month until the complete withdrawal from Iraq. At that time, the monthly costs for Afghanistan would be $3.5 billion. Thus, as indicated in the table below, the net savings from a complete withdrawal from Iraq over the next four years would be $316 billion (After $54 billion is offset by the increase of our forces in Afghanistan). If $76 billion is allocated to reset, the net savings would be approximately about $240 billion.

2. Center for American Progress/Institute for Policy Studies “Unified Security Budget”

An additional $60B could be saved from eliminating wasteful weapons systems, reducing the number of active nuclear warheads and tightening procurement processes to reduce waste, fraud and abuse, as outlined in the attached Foreign Policy in Focus report "A Unified Security Budget".

Here is CAP’s list of items that total $60B:

--- --- Administration’s FY 2008 Request --- --- Task Force’s Proposed Change+

F/A-22 Raptor --- --- 4.1 --- --- -3.8
Ballistic Missile Defense --- --- 10.5 --- --- -8.1
Virginia-Class Submarine --- --- 3.6 --- --- -2.5
DDG-1000 --- --- 3.2 --- --- -3.2
V-22 Osprey --- --- 3.5 --- --- -3.0
Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle --- --- 0.3 --- --- -0.3
F35 Joint Strike Fighter --- --- 6.7 --- --- -3.7
Offensive Space Weapons --- --- 1.5 --- --- -1.4
Future Combat Systems --- --- 3.6 --- --- -2.1
Research & Development --- --- 80.0 --- --- -5.0
Nuclear Forces --- --- 21.0 --- --- -15.6
Force Structure --- --- - --- --- -5.0
Waste in Procurement and Business Operations --- --- - --- --- -7.0
Total --- --- - --- --- -60.7

Taken together, the billion this gets us most of the way to 25% ($165.7 billion) of the estimated $700B defense budget for FY09. 25% of $700 billion is $175 billion. The amount saved from tightening up auditing and procurement oversight can be stretched to fill the gap.