As Republicans prepare to take over the House of Representatives, it appears the next Congress is heading back to the future. Republicans believe they have a mandate to get control of spending to defeat inflation, while President Biden and congressional Democrats want no part of that. So we can expect the same government shutdown and debt ceiling dramas we witnessed during the Obama Administration when Republicans and Democrats found themselves in a similar fiscal fight.
Back then, national defense was the biggest loser, as both political parties agreed on budget caps and a sequestration mechanism that decimated military readiness and modernization. Before we repeat those mistakes, Republicans instead ought to take a page from the Reagan playbook and insist that we can defeat inflation and control federal spending without weakening our military.
Republicans ought to take a page from the Reagan playbook and insist that we can defeat inflation and control federal spending without weakening our military.
After all, a military capable of effective deterrence may be more essential to taming inflation today than it was in the 1980s. Much of the inflation the world has endured this year stems from the disruptions created by Russia’s war on Ukraine. If Russia escalates further, or if China invades or blockades Taiwan, the economic consequences and inflationary pressures could be dire. Stronger defense capabilities are in both our economic and national security interests.
Faced with an expansionist Soviet Union and double-digit inflation at the start of his presidency, President Reagan’s economic team pursued a program that cut taxes, reduced spending and reformed Social Security. This fiscal cocktail did not include one ingredient: defense cuts. In what became known as the “showdown” between Budget Director David Stockman and Defense Secretary Casper “Cap” Weinberger, President Reagan rejected arguments that defense spending undermined the economic recovery.
Stockman sought a slow military buildup in order to limit deficit spending in the president’s first budget request—something Stockman anticipated would be essential to winning over Reaganite budget hawks in Congress and reassuring the markets. Yet President Reagan sided with his defense secretary, allowing the military to grow by more than 50 percent between 1983 and 1987.
Thanks to that decision, Weinberger was able to build a defense program that delivered the military credibility Reagan sought for his “peace through strength” agenda, including a 600 ship Navy, modernized Air Force and nuclear forces, larger land forces, and better pay and benefits for service members. An exasperated Stockman was surprised that there was no sticker shock in the Oval Office. But for Reagan, national defense was the domain of the commander-in-chief and the Pentagon—not the Office of Management and Budget. Stockman’s slow growth alternative would have meant cutting two aircraft carrier battle groups, reducing purchases of F-18 fighter aircraft, and delaying the procurement of the Bradley fighting vehicle—all of which became signature parts of the Reagan buildup.
After all, a military capable of effective deterrence may be more essential to taming inflation today than it was in the 1980s.
As important as his decision to move forward with the largest peacetime military buildup in modern history was Reagan’s rationale for siding with his defense secretary. The military budget had to align with the security needs of the country, not the political calculus of the moment. In 1981, this meant restoring the margin of safety the U.S. had lost against the Soviet Union during the 1970s.
Fast forward to today. The Biden Administration recently rolled out an ambitious national defense strategy that rightly acknowledges the unprecedented challenge posed by China’s modernized military, in addition to the dangers posed by Russia, Iran, North Korea and jihadist terrorism. Despite this, the Biden budget outlook is flat and has all the markings of a defense program designed by the Office of Management and Budget — a political product divorced from their own strategy, which will result in a shrinking and less capable force.
The Republican Congress should not go along with it. Channeling Reagan, they can build on last year’s bipartisan congressional efforts to beef up the Biden defense budget and, at the same time, challenge Biden Administration spending on the ever-growing entitlement state. This means supporting a defense budget with at least five percent real growth annually. After all, the conceit that Congress can arrest the deficit without entitlement reform is the pernicious myth that does little except weaken our military. During the Obama Administration, we learned the hard way that fixating on budget caps for discretionary spending—less than a third of federal spending—creates a lot of political theater with little to show for it.
The success of the Reagan military buildup and economic recovery was anything but inevitable. The historical record reveals that the same political forces and policy arguments that oppose supporting a strong military today were alive and well during the Reagan Revolution. Back then, principle not politics won the day: “Defense,” Reagan said, “is not a budget issue. You spend what you need.”
Divided government produced a strong military and economy before. It can be done again.
Roger I. Zakheim is Director of the Reagan Institute, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense and a Commissioner on the Congressional National Defense Strategy Commission.