Louisiana governor and possible 2016 presidential candidate Bobby Jindal (R) released a report on Monday slamming the Obama administration for cutting defense spending too steeply and outlining ideas to more adequately fund the Pentagon while ensuring fiscal accountability.
In the report, Rebuilding the American Defense Consensus, Jindal and co-author former-Sen. Jim Talent (R-Mo.) argue that in the short-term, Congress and the administration need to find a way to fully fund military readiness accounts, as America’s servicemen and women deserve nothing less than to have all the training and equipment they need to succeed in their missions.”
Then, “the Defense Department should conduct a real review of its needs given America’s strategic interests and vulnerabilities, and Congress and the President should fund the military accordingly,” according to the report. ”Pending the outcome of that review, Congress and the President should plan on returning to the budget baseline [former Defense Secretary Robert] Gates proposed in 2011,” which Jindal and Talent say is the last time the defense budget was informed by actual analysis of threats and military needs.
Ultimately, the two argue, defense spending should be brought from its current 2.9 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) to about 4 percent GDP–even higher than the Gates’ budget, which would be 3.5 percent.
“The up and down nature of defense budgeting is not only dangerous but inefficient; it makes planning difficult and usually costs more than if a consistent funding level had been maintained in the first place,” the two cite as a reason to aim for a consistent 4 percent GDP. “Such a guideline would not mean the military should always be funded at 4 percent of GDP regardless of need; the proper way to budget is to analyze threats, determine the capabilities that are needed to deter or defeat those threats, and then budget accordingly. But if Department of Defense (DoD) funding drops consistently below 4 percent of GDP, it should be a taken as a warning that another cycle of inefficient, up and down budgeting is impending.”
In addition to calling for higher spending levels, Jindal said during the report’s rollout Monday morning at the American Enterprise Institute that rising acquisition costs needed to be brought under control. Laying out a three-step plan, Jindal said the Pentagon first needed to streamline the requirements process, simplifying and consolidating the chain of command to reduce the number of opportunities for a program to veer off track and increase accountability among program managers.
Second, he said the Pentagon should aim to design and procure new programs within a five-to-seven-year window, understanding that a simpler version could be initially deployed and technologies upgrades made later. “Shortening the design/build cycle will minimize changes in requirements, reduce delays, and control costs. The primary need now is for new equipment with reasonable capability in the field as soon as possible. Technology older than seven years is likely to be obsolete upon delivery anyway,” he wrote in the report.
And third, Jindal urges more competition, not just in design contracts but also in the production phase. “The Department should make every effort to ensure that key parts of key programs are dual sourced, both to hold down costs and to ensure the vitality of the defense industrial base,” according to the report. “The Department should make much greater use of multi-year procurement contracts. Members of Congress will resist that, because it diminishes their year-to-year control over programs, but buying in volume over time, when a program has a stable design, will produce savings for the Department and the American taxpayer.”
Most or all of these items would be impossible to implement under sequestration, however. During the AEI event, Jindal called on a “bipartisan majority in Congress” to act to boost defense spending. Asked during the question and answer session about sequestration, Jindal said he supported cuts to domestic spending but believed defense spending cuts should be undone–the same stance as many congressional Republicans, and a stance congressional Democrats have vehemently opposed, which is why no progress has been made yet on repealing sequestration.
Later, asked how to get past the congressional stalemate over repealing sequestration, Jindal said, “absolutely this requires executive branch leadership, it requires White House leadership…The bad news is we haven’t had that kind of leadership out of the White House. The good news for us, there’s a hunger across this country for that leadership.” He added that he firmly believed Congress would follow course if the president put serious effort into crafting a compromise.