January 31, 2000

MEMORANDUM TO: OPINION LEADERS

FROM: GARY SCHMITT

SUBJECT: Defense

I would like to call your attention to the following editorial written by Project chairman William Kristol for this week’s Weekly Standard. As the editorial makes clear, there is a substantial and growing gap between America’s strategic goals and the resources being provided the Pentagon for it to carry out its part in meeting those goals. And equally striking is the silence of America’s political leaders in the face of the military’s mounting problems.

Defense spending has been on the decline since the second Reagan Administration. The cuts made by Presidents Reagan and Bush largely reflected the winding down of the Cold War. President Clinton’s cuts, however, reflected little more than an effort to find dollars in a then-tight budget era to keep government domestic spending up. In reality, the federal budget was balanced primarily by means of increased tax revenues and by slowly starving the armed services. National defense is the only major category of federal spending to decline between the start of the decade and today. Since 1992, the executive branch has eliminated some 800,000 federal jobs. Of that total, over 86% have come from the ranks of the armed services and civilians working in the Department of Defense. Given the projections of government budget surpluses in the coming years, there is no longer any excuses for short-changing America’s defenses.