Military Spending and Social Security

``The Congress shall have the power ... to raise and support armies ... [and] to provide and maintain a Navy.'' — Article I, The United States Constitution.

In the past century we have fallen in to the bad habit of only paying lip service to the notion of limited government with limited powers. However, one of the specific powers granted to Congress is to provide for a military.

The Executive Branch, since it is the one with primary responsibility for foreign affairs and conducting military operations, has an institutional proclivity to support a strong military. The Congress, especially the House, focuses on parochial issues, sometimes at the expense of international relations and support for the armed forces.

These institutional tendencies were reinforced during the end game of the Cold War when Republican Administrations were strongly anti-Communist and provided adequate resources to the military. The Democratically dominated House, corrupted by the Vietnam experience, believed the world would be better off with less United States intervention and were disinclined to fund a military some of them loathed. It was clear who did and who did not support the military.

In an ironic twist of events, it is frugal, green-eye shade Republicans that may be the military's current worst enemy. Though the GOP frets about the "hollowed" out military whose resources have dangerously decreased under Clinton's leadership, when push comes to shove it is the Clinton Administration in the last budget cycle asking for more funds for the military.

The problem is rooted in the GOP's commitment to reduce income taxes and not touch the Social Security surplus. Performing this act of budgetary legerdemain is difficult this year and will grow ever more difficult as the social security surplus dwindles with increasing numbers of retirees. The GOP's commitment to decrease taxes is wise but misplaced.

The Republican strategy this year should have been to not return income tax surpluses, but rather to rebate one half of the social security surplus to workers and apply the other half toward deficit reduction. The deficit reduction would reduce the government's debt load and brace the country for the tsunami of social security retirees washing onto the nation's shores at the end of the next century's first decade. The income tax surpluses of the future could be used to increase military funding.

This approach would have had two advantages. First, since the social security tax is applied on the first dollar of income even the poorest could see significant social security tax decreases. Second, as the social security surplus decreases in the out years, the effect of an unreformed social security system would be become apparent year to year in decreased rebates of social security taxes. Pressure would build from the bottom up for social security reform.

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