Wall Street Journal

Trimming Pentagon's Pork May Increase Our Security

Why persist in thinking that throwing money at the Defense Department, as recommended in your Oct. 20 editorial " Our Small Defense Budget ," will make us safer? Clearly we could spend more on defense if we chose to do so. The question is whether spending more would be a good use of our resources. Just because we can spend more does not mean that we should. One of the reasons the U.S. prevailed in the Cold War is because we spent a smaller proportion of our GDP on defense than the Soviets, who ultimately bankrupted themselves on weapons spending.

It's not sensible to measure defense spending as a percentage of GDP or of the total federal budget, for that matter. The question is whether we're spending enough with respect to the strategic challenges we face. Spending as a percentage of GDP has dropped because we're getting richer through economic growth -- not because we've been spending less and adopting riskier defense postures.

But it's time to end the pork-barrel system that supports defense industry overcapacity and increasingly bloated Pentagon budgets. The 2007 Defense Appropriations Act authorizes continued funding for the F-22 and several other Cold War-era weapons -- procurements many defense experts believe are suboptimal in the war against terrorism. If we trim wasteful Pentagon spending in the coming year and shift some of the budget allocated for the F-22 and other Cold War-era weapons to diplomacy, development and domestic priorities, our sense of security might be based on something more than a fleet of flying Maseratis.

Ben Cohen
President
Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities
Co-founder of Ben & Jerry's
Burlington, Vt.