DoD FY 2022

 HBUD: DoD FY 2022 ,June 24, 2021

President’s Budget: Make global leadership a priority. 

From June 9th: We must add rebuilding the Diplomatic Corps, which was savaged by the prior Administration. Every effort should be made to investigate what really happened with the “perfect phone call.” It may have been the perfect cover-up for a Kremlin led plan to cut military aid to Ukraine, with Mr. Giuliani and Secretary Pompeo acting as the President’s handlers rather than his agents. Provisions should be made to investigate where presidential discretion ends and foreign agency begins.

Leadership does not mean starting another Cold War or finding a new mission to keep the defense sector well funded. In the First Bush Administration, Defense Guidance laid out a grand strategy for making enemies in the Middle East. Essentially, it was the Domino Theory in reverse. Let us learn from our mistakes. 

Looking to Iran for help in stabilizing Afghanistan would be an act of national maturity on our part. The Taliban has been emboldened by our exit and had not qualms about shooting at us while we were there. They would not take such liberties if the Republican Guard was protecting women and girls in Afghanistan and enforcing the peace. Many in Afghanistan are ethnically Persian, so such a move makes sense. It will also keep their military occupied.

In general, boundary changes should be sought. Whether our leadership is helpful, given the events of the past, may not allow us to facilitate such an effort. This brings us to Gaza. It was only retained because settlers lived there. With the settlers gone, it should be returned to Egypt. Any two-state solution must respect any desire for Israeli Arabs to join with Palestinians to form a second state. Any such state should be free to join a larger Arab state, rather than to function as a vassal state. A one-state solution must leave Arab and Palestinian citizens of Israel with full political rights with no preconditions.

President’s Budget: Meeting National Defense Needs. 

From June 9th: In general, we recommend that non-strategic air and ground units based in CONUS be funded from the goods and services tax, while sea, overseas (OCO) operations and veterans benefits be funded with asset VAT and higher tier employer-paid subtraction VAT revenues, which will also fund net interest and paying down the Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds. Please see our June 9th comments for more information on our tax reform proposals.

Essentially, federal defense spending which benefits the homeland will be paid by American taxpayers, but not by exports. The current regime can be seen as an unconstitutional export tax. Department of Defense product and logistic commands will be funded based on where units are assigned and based. Strategic systems will be nationally funded.

Overseas deployments and war are generally put on the national credit card. It is generally better to tax higher income individuals rather than paying them interest instead. The cash flows are the same, but taxation means that the cash need not be paid back at interest. 

We agree that major changes in funding should wait while defense policy is re-evaluated. In most years, funding is stable due to the Planning-Programming-Budgeting System used by the Department. It takes a lot to steer this ship and it is good that the Administration is conscientiously preparing for a change in course.

In April of 2019, we submitted comments to the Senate Budget Committee on the FY 2020 Defense Budget. We have since found out that they not only don’t print comments, they don’t accept them. At least this committee has an e-mail contact, so we hope that these comments will be distributed and printed. Most of our main points are addressed here, including and especially examining how programs in relation to taxes collected, regional deployments and the budget process. 

These comments included an analysis of how defense spending compares with civil appropriations. From FY 2020: The National Priorities publishes a pie chart of discretionary spending which lumped the entire defense budget into a 57% slice.. Attachment Two offers a more detailed perspective on how departmental spending subtotals relate to size of civilian departments, including when grouped for comparable analysis to DoD as a whole.

One of the benefits of a stable defense profile is that this table is still relatively accurate and can again be found in the second attachment. As we recalibrate our defense needs, we need to reconsider how we fund NASA, especially how its funds are appropriated.

President’s Budget: Strengthens American leadership in science, technology, and innovation. 

June 9th: NASA funding can generally be regarded as an overseas deployment. It should be funded through the defense research and acquisition appropriations. This allows for a new “peace dividend” without loss of the military industrial base. Defense contractor human resources are not readily transferred to the civilian sector. One such effort is research on Closed Loop Environmental Support Systems. Doing so could provide alternate means of agriculture, water treatment and home building. It ends the problem of population, conceivably on a worldwide basis.

This change ends the need for the defense industry to encourage the purchase (and use) of the weapons of war. Given the admission that UAB’s may be extraterrestrial in nature, or a planetary technology that we do not understand, research and development in aerospace should be maintained. Firing weapons at UABs is not advisable, so a peacetime agency should be engaged in this research. One year ago, the concept of investigating extraterrestrial visits would not have found its way into anyone’s comments on national security.

NASA spending has much room to grow and shifting it to Defense Appropriations gives it more room to ask for more funding. Eventually, recent progress in private sector space services and management will end the need for a NASA budget. 

To get us to that point, we must spend more money, not less. If we bring more to the table, multinational cooperation can be ramped up as well. This is an essential part of our relationship with the Russian space agency as we reset our foreign policy in the post-Trump era.

President’s Budget: End the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) loophole

June 9th: Overseas deployments and war are generally put on the national credit card. It is generally better to tax higher income individuals rather than paying them interest instead. The cash flows are the same, but taxation means that the cash need not be paid back at interest. 

The OCO fund, along with the usual 10% for rounding that shows up in the budget only when examined in detail, serves three functions. It provides a way to fund programs that should not be talked about for security reasons. As a former program control officer, I can assure the Committee that DoD watches every penny. 

Overseas spending needs to be part of the base budget, but with improved visibility of how funds are deployed to protect allies and insure the freedom of the seas. This gives us an idea of how much of spending is on preparedness and how much is spent on actual deployments. Knowing more helps us find a necessary balance. Regional balance also deserves attention.

In our testimony to the Appropriations Subcommittees, we called for regional reporting of appropriations in the Committee Reports for that appropriation. This should be the case with DoD as well, with strategic nuclear components NOT reported regionally, Alaska, Pacific, Central and European deployments counted as OCONUS and materiel command activities assigned to the units that they support rather than to where items are produced or procured.

Please see the first attachment for details on this reporting, as well as on necessary changes to the budget and appropriations process - which is still broken - as well as the possibility of regionally based appropriations passed by regional subcommittees.

President’s Budget - Ensure NDD components of national security fulfill their roles

Any funding to prevent stove-piping is helpful. I suggest setting up a classified network (with no Internet connection) to link civilian and military intelligence, homeland security, national security and diplomatic personnel with the same areas of responsibility with an emphasis on open communication and thinking outside of the box. Management turf protection is the chief inhibitor of the free flow of information. Culture change is as important as budgeting.

The story of the last few years is the story of DoD budget officials doing their jobs. The “perfect phone call” was likely a ruse to hide the defunding of assistance to Ukraine for the benefit of Russia’s regional ambitions.  I trust that the Eastern District of New York’s investigation into these events will find what was designed to be hidden. What will we do so that nothing like the Trump reign of treason happens again. In July of 2020, I addressed the question of prosecuting Citizen Trump for treason rather than election interference. This analysis bears repeating here:

The question is then what and why are we investigating? The only Trump crime of any consequence is fealty to Putin. No one cares about campaign dirty tricks and they are not being prosecuted. If the Trump-Putin relationship falls under foreign policy discretion, what are we doing here? Why does anyone bother lying? Put another way, if Trump went to DC Federal Courthouse and detailed everything he actually did, what crime was committed?

Unless we face the question of espionage by Trump, this national soap opera is a sad farce on both sides. Unless the message about the Trump presidency does not go that deep, no Trumpsters will give up on their hero. This must be explained as more than partisanship on both sides. Not doing so is why impeachment failed.  If Schiff  cannot or will not point to an actual non-partisan crime, then half the nation will believe this has all been a witch hunt. That is not a good look for the nation. Indeed, it does exactly what Putin wants.

Allowing Russia a zone of influence near its borders (a Monroe Doctrine, if you will) is not an idea originating with Trump. Is his presidential discretion wide enough to pursue such a policy, regardless of past doctrine?  This is another way of asking whether we wish to criminalize American foreign policy?

We tried in Iran-Contra, however the investigation led to the overturn of Lt. Col. North's criminal conviction. The question remains, was violating the Boland Amendment a crime or a secret foreign policy?

The Ukraine affair is of a similar nature - although the system worked well enough to make sure the military aid was spent. The purported crime was election interference, but that interference would have, at worst, been one day event on Fox News. It amounts to a dirty trick, and a sloppy one at that.

The real issue with Ukraine is whether election interference was just the cover story, with Trump's real intention being to hang Ukraine out to dry and force a pro-Moscow settlement. Would doing so have been a crime or an act of presidential discretion. While the impeachment trial hinted at treasonous intent, it was not pursued convincingly enough for Republicans to have to vote to remove.

Some may even conclude that Senator Schumer and Chairman Schiff took a dive, that the entire impeachment was, essentially, an electoral stunt all its own - one that far exceeds the 15 minutes of fame on Fox News had the Ukrainian President been more cooperative.

President Bush took a pass at arresting Vice President Cheney when he attempted to force his own policy on torture on the Justice Department - who objected and went to the President. There is also the matter of war crimes ordered by Cheney and Rumsfeld. The Geneva Convention was not observed at Gitmo. The war may or may not have been about WMD. Regardless, Rummy lost the peace by firing all Baath party officers from the Iraqi Army, thus destroying the existing civil society in Iraq. When the Baathists fled to Syria, they just may have taken the WMD with them. That chemical weapons were used in Syria should be no surprise to anyone who can connect the dots.

The 2006 election was about a few things, but the failure of the peace, as detailed by Bob  Woodward in a book that came out just before the election, had a big part in the loss (as did GOP corruption). There was a real push to hold the President (or the Vice President) responsible for the debacle, but Speaker Pelosi would not go there. Doing so would have criminalized foreign policy.

Where do we draw the line once we open Pandora's Box? Iran-Contra was played as a rogue operation by the National Security Advisor and his Deputy. By that time, Reagan's dementia was likely far enough advanced that he had no involvement - and no one asked whether Vice President Bush was in the loop. This has always vexed me. History may provide an answer when we are all dead or we may never know…

...If Trump is a traitor, it should be examined, but this will have implications for future presidents, including a future President Schiff.

The question of whether Bin Laden was assassinated rather than being captured has criminal implications. Others have raised the question of the targeting of an American citizen who was part of Al Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula. Most come down on the side of presidential discretion. If we criminalize foreign policy, could it boomerang on our best president since Ike?

The nation must grapple with this issue and it must do so now. It goes beyond the President’s Budget request.

President’s Budget: Support needed reforms in the justice system. 

The Uniform Code of Military Justice needs an update. The law is moving forward in the civilian world and the military must follow suit. While cannabis use has no place when deployed or in training, it should not be feared in all circumstances. Asking about past illegal activity should be removed from the Personal Security Questionnaire. Any questioning should be used to identify mental health needs and accommodations. It should not be used as a proxy for personal conservatism.

In general, punishment should be replaced with treatment for alcohol related or fueled offenses. Offenders should be allowed to plead guilty by reason of insanity. Mental health incarceration should be for the current minimum term and should continue as long as the member needs such attention for long term care. They should not be discharged early, passing the problem to others. Standards of commitment should be adjusted so that relapse on substances or non-compliance with treatment plans should be grounds for rehospitalization.

Trump should be allowed to plead the same thing for most of his alleged crimes. It is the best way to lower the national temperature.

President’s Budget: Fulfill the sacred obligation to our veterans. 

From June: In recent decades, the problem of veteran disability determinations has remained troubling, with the Pandemic complicating processing. When a job gets too big to manage with staff, two options remain - contract out as much work as possible, including consolidating case files and making easy determinations - and sharing responsibility for processing with the Department of Defense. The handoff from DoD to DVA should be seamless. 

The mental health and housing needs of veterans, both recent and lingering, is endemic. This is another area where coordination with DoD would prove helpful. This help must go beyond management and computer systems and include the human element of soldiers, veterans using services and those who need services can interact on a less formal, but not unprogrammed basis.

President’s Budget: Make critical investments in child care.

From June 9th: Childcare is best provided by the employer or the employee-owned or cooperative firm.On-site care, with separate spaces for well and sick children, as well as an on-site medical site for sick employees, will uncomplicate the morning and evening routine. Making yet another stop in an already busy schedule adds to the stress of the day. Knowing that, if problems arise, parents can be right there, will help workers focus on work.

Larger firms and government agencies can more easily provide such facilities. Indeed, in the Reeves Center of the District Government, such a site already exists. 

This should be the case in more DoD facilities, especially the Pentagon. Especially for civilian team members. Also, coffee should be free. To require coffee clubs to be formed is petty.

Attachment: Committee Reports

Attachment:Shares of the Discretionary Budget, Senate DoD FY 2020, April 9, 2020