Sen. Bernie Sanders recently declared that he would oppose the defense budget. His reasons: It’s bloated, and the money would better be spent elsewhere.
The Vermont independent has every right to argue that money used to fund the military would be better spent on other priorities — in his case, climate change subsidies and welfare programs. But it is important to start these budgetary arguments from a common base of facts.
For example, he claims the U.S. defense budget is as big as those of the next 10 countries combined and more than three times what China spends on defense. Neither assertion is true. In June, Senate Armed Services Committee member Dan Sullivan, Alaska Republican, revealed that internal U.S. government estimates project the actual size of the Chinese defense budget to be in the neighborhood of $700 billion, just behind the U.S. defense budget’s most recent total of $816.7 billion.
Mr. Sanders also raises the ongoing audit of the Department of Defense, ignoring the difficulties inherent in auditing such a huge organization — one with a budget of more than $800 billion. Moreover, many of the issues with defense contracting costs and its civilian workforce inefficiency stem from regulations imposed by Congress itself.
Most recently, he has voted in favor of sending weapons to Ukraine and confronting the Russians in Europe. About the only exception he is willing to make is for China; he has consistently downplayed the threat posed by Beijing and attempted to hold up the funding needed to counter it.
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