On Monday, I posted a lengthy entry here comparing the different plans for military spending: the current Obama administration/OMB baseline, CBO’s latest estimate for sequestration, Mitt Romney’s plan to spend four percent of GDP on the Pentagon’s base budget, and Paul Ryan’s plan.
I should have taken a bit more time checking my numbers, because I ended up comparing apples to oranges (or 050 to 051, in budget-wonk-speak).
Thankfully, the ever-watchful Carl Conetta at the Project on Defense Alternatives spied the error, and set me straight. The gap between the Ryan plan and the current baseline (President Obama’s plan) is less than I had previously reported. The gap between the Ryan plan and the Romney plan is larger. The new numbers, and a revised chart are enclosed below.
I have had to make some inferences, so Governor Romney has some wiggle room. Romney’s surrogates have clarified other aspects of his plans for military spending, most recently here, but I still don’t know what is included when he says he will have a “goal of setting core defense spending—meaning funds devoted to the fundamental military components of personnel, operations and maintenance, procurement, and research and development—at a floor of 4 percent of GDP.” And no one seems to know how soon he intends to achieve that goal.
He could claim that the four percent goal should be applied to the entire “national defense” category (aka 050), which includes nuclear weapons spending within the Department of Energy, for example. This amounts to about a $25 billion difference annually. He could also include mandatory spending within the Pentagon’s budget, another $9 billion a year, on average.
The bottom line remains unchanged, however: Paul Ryan would spend more than President Obama on the military; Mitt Romney would spend much more. To his credit, Ryan has specified other spending cuts in domestic programs to ensure that his plan doesn’t add to the deficit or require higher taxes. Romney has not.
As before, I anxiously await additional clarification on how Romney plans to make up the difference.
Details, in constant 2012 dollars, for the period 2013–2022:
- Obama/OMB Baseline (051, discretionary): Total $5.163 trillion
- Sequestration per CBO (051, discretionary): Total $4.659 trillion; $504 billion in savings
- Ryan plan (051, discretionary): Total $5.321 trillion; $158 billion in additional spending
- Romney 4 percent in four years: Total $7.015 trillion; $1.852 trillion in additional spending
- Romney 4 percent in eight years: Total $6.868 trillion; average $687 billion/year; $1.704 trillion in additional spending
