Right-Wing Calls To Cut Defense Would End Up Targeting The Republican Base

There is a move afoot among some Republicans in the House of Representatives to scale back the federal government’s discretionary spending in fiscal 2024 to the level prevailing in 2022.

Discretionary spending does not include formula-driven entitlements like Social Security, but covers most of the activities for which funding must be appropriated annually, such as law enforcement and education.

Defense is by far the biggest component of the discretionary budget. Because it has been growing steadily, retreating to the 2022 level might require $75 billion in cuts to annual military outlays.

Pro-defense lawmakers in both parties are howling at that prospect, and in fact relatively few Republicans want to see defense outlays cut, but “few” is the difference between House Speaker Kevin McCarthy having a majority or a minority in the chamber.

Simply to be elected Speaker he had to make deals with “deficit hawks” in the Republican caucus that might lead to legislation curbing discretionary outlays, including those for the military. This wouldn’t be the first time that has happened.

The handful of conservatives pressing for such legislation overlaps with another Republican faction that is unsettled by the scale of U.S. aid to the embattled government of Ukraine. Some members of the latter group complain that arms manufacturers are benefiting from the war, and are encouraging U.S. involvement in a conflict that could escalate to catastrophic dimensions.

You can hear such rhetoric nightly on popular conservative outlets such as the Tucker Carlson show. It harkens back to a way of thinking that many isolationists espoused in the years after World War One, when a Democratic president was said to have tricked America into going to war, abetted by the arms industry.

More recently, anti-militarism has been largely the province of the Left, a consequence of the Vietnam War and its aftermath. But the possibility that some conservatives might be having second thoughts about military spending after two generations of steady support for “peace through strength” is unusual—a peculiar compound of neo-isolationism, deficit fears, and opposition to anything the other party is doing.

It is doubly unusual because the Republican Party’s electoral base is closely associated with military spending. You need only compare the number of military bases in the Northeast with those in the South to see how disproportionately beneficial Pentagon spending has been for the GOP heartland.

The South traditionally has had a stronger martial spirit than other regions, and the coincidence of interests between the Right and the military has been reinforced by the migration of military plants to the South as manufacturing has gradually withered elsewhere in the country.

Huntsville, Alabama might still be a sleepy crossroads were it not for the determined efforts of the local congressional delegation to court every defense dollar up for grabs. Defense is a core component of the local economies in Florida and Texas, two states that the GOP must win to secure the White House. The game-changing HIMARS rocket system is assembled in deep-red Arkansas.

And then there are the swing states. The Joint Light Tactical Vehicle is built in Wisconsin. The Chinook helicopter is built in Pennsylvania. The Abrams tank is built in Ohio. The supply chain supporting such programs consists of thousands of companies, many of which are run by reliably conservative voters.

So when a Republican faction calls for cutting defense spending, a process that likely would reduce weapons outlays at a faster rate than personnel outlays or readiness, that faction is attacking a pillar of the GOP’s electoral base.

You would think that a party that has only won the popular vote in one presidential race since 1988 (and that one by less than 51%) would be ill-disposed to assaulting a constituency so central to its future electability. And in fact, the vast majority of Republican lawmakers would much rather go after domestic programs.

But when you only a have a majority on five legislators in the House—and no majority at all in the Senate—unusual bargains have to be made. So we can expect Speaker McCarthy to entertain proposals for across-the-board cuts to discretionary spending that would devastate elements of the “military-industrial complex.”

Considering how close the last election was in some states, it is conceivable that widespread defense cuts could swing the outcome of the 2024 presidential race. For instance, the F-35 fighter program alone generates 10,000 jobs in Arizona, over 5,000 each in Georgia and Michigan.

Add in all the other military programs that might be trimmed, and the economic fallout could have significant electoral consequences. Republicans might claim that their real target is wasteful domestic programs backed by Democrats, but the GOP is the only party where lawmakers are talking about cutting discretionary outlays across the board.

Those supporting such measures are not out of their minds. The most recent Congressional Budget Office estimates reflect structural deficits of over a trillion dollars annually stretching out as far as the eye can see. Conservatives are right to fear that this pattern will eventually lead to financial ruin.

But as President Trump observed in one of his more trenchant moments, there’s isn’t much of a constituency for deficit reduction. Voters are much more motivated by what they, individually, stand to gain or lose in federal spending decisions.

Thus, the willingness of some Republicans to cut programs closely associated with their own electoral base is a prescription for losing elections. It does little to advance a conservative agenda, and a lot to make America safe for the progressive ascendancy.

Several major military contractors contribute to my think tank.