2013 budget $525.4 billion.  (Preparing the report for the budget request and printing it cost $34,000).

Overseas Contingency Operations (those pesky wars in Afghanistan and Iraq) is another $88.5 billion and is not part of the “real” defense budget.  (This was always part of the problem.  We never raised taxes to pay for the wars or asked the citizenry to sacrifice in any way to finance them.  We just borrowed more money.)

2012 budget $530.6 billion, with OCO budget of an additional $115.1 billion.

2011 budget $528.2 billion plus OCO budget of $158.8 billion.

The DoD has learned from prior draw downs that it is impossible to generate the savings they seek by just becoming efficient.  They have to get rid of programs.  Personnel costs account for 1/3 of the budget.

In 2014, this ratio jumped to one-half.  Somehow–unexplained.

Here is where the numbers and math start to go fuzzy.  (Fancy talk for “They are lying to you.”)

See, the real budget for 2012 was $530.6 billion.  The proposed budget was $570.7 billion.  $40.1 billion higher.  The proposed budget for 2013 was $525.4 billion.  They tell you they cut the budget by $45.3 billion.  Quite a savings, yes?  But they only cut $5.2 billion in real dollars.  You can not count the $40 billion that you didn’t get (and thus did not spend) as savings.

Once the “contingency operations” end are we going to claim another $85 billion in savings?  I mean, we simply borrowed that money from China.  If you stop borrowing money, it the reduction in expenditures really a savings?

One of the ten missions we were supposed to focus on with the reshaping of our drawn down forces was to “deter and defeat aggression”.  Another was to “provide a stabilizing presence”.  Sure.  Ask the Ukraine how we are doing on those two fronts.  Compare these to the four missions in the 2014 budget proposal.

1. Act as good stewards of the public funds.

2. Implement and deepen program alignment to the new defense strategy.

3. Create a force that is ready across a spectrum of missions.

4. Keep people central to our plans.

Not a word about being able to defeat enemies, defend the homeland, protect allies, maintain global military supremacy.  These sound like the feel good goals and a mission statement for a marketing firm.

Now here is the kicker.  The defense budget request is for $526.6 billion, and increase of only $1.2 billion.  However, secretary Hagel is seeking to cut 70,000 troops.  That is a minimum of 2 Army Divisions.  We only have ten active divisions.  He is also seeking to eliminate the A-10 aircraft, the best close air support platform ever flown.  The U2 spy plane is a victim to the budget as well, even though it has been around for fifty some years and is still quite a capable SIGINT and photographic intelligence collection platform.  It times time and fuel to redirect a satellite.  A plane sortie can be planned in hours.  The Navy is not immune.  They are looking at losing an aircraft carrier with its air wing, a nuclear sub, three destroyers, three support ships.  The Air Force will have to retire its entire fleet of KC10 tankers as well as some of the Global Hawk drones (a cheaper plane that could also do the U2 mission.)

With a force this much smaller, with this many fewer ships, planes, and people, why is the budget proposal larger–even nominally?  Should it not be radically smaller?  Where is the stewardship for the public funds?