Columbia International Affairs Online: Policy Briefs

CIAO DATE: 02/2012

Keep Pentagon Cuts in Perspective: What the administration proposes is hardly dramatic

Carl Conetta

January 2012

Project on Defense Alternatives

Abstract

Despite the hyperbole surrounding it, the proposal to roll back the DoD budget plan for 2013- 2017 by $260 billion, asserted by Defense Secretary Panetta last fall, doesn’t amount to much of a reduction from recent spending levels – about 4 percent in real terms. The roll back does appear more significant when measured against the administration’s earlier spending plans for 2013-2017. But that’s only because those earlier plans had aimed to continue the real growth in the Pentagon’s base budget that had been underway since 1998.