[House Hearing, 112 Congress] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office] [H.A.S.C. No. 112-81] ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF DEFENSE SEQUESTRATION __________ COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION __________ HEARING HELD OCTOBER 26, 2011 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TONGRESS.#13 U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 71-452 WASHINGTON : 2012 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, http://bookstore.gpo.gov. For more information, contact the GPO Customer Contact Center, U.S. Government Printing Office. Phone 202�09512�091800, or 866�09512�091800 (toll-free). E-mail, [email protected]. HOUSE COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES One Hundred Twelfth Congress HOWARD P. ``BUCK'' McKEON, California, Chairman ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland ADAM SMITH, Washington MAC THORNBERRY, Texas SILVESTRE REYES, Texas WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina LORETTA SANCHEZ, California W. TODD AKIN, Missouri MIKE McINTYRE, North Carolina J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania JEFF MILLER, Florida ROBERT ANDREWS, New Jersey JOE WILSON, South Carolina SUSAN A. DAVIS, California FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island MICHAEL TURNER, Ohio RICK LARSEN, Washington JOHN KLINE, Minnesota JIM COOPER, Tennessee MIKE ROGERS, Alabama MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam TRENT FRANKS, Arizona JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania DAVE LOEBSACK, Iowa K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, Arizona DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado NIKI TSONGAS, Massachusetts ROB WITTMAN, Virginia CHELLIE PINGREE, Maine DUNCAN HUNTER, California LARRY KISSELL, North Carolina JOHN C. FLEMING, M.D., Louisiana MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico MIKE COFFMAN, Colorado BILL OWENS, New York TOM ROONEY, Florida JOHN R. GARAMENDI, California TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania MARK S. CRITZ, Pennsylvania SCOTT RIGELL, Virginia TIM RYAN, Ohio CHRIS GIBSON, New York C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri HANK JOHNSON, Georgia JOE HECK, Nevada BETTY SUTTON, Ohio BOBBY SCHILLING, Illinois COLLEEN HANABUSA, Hawaii JON RUNYAN, New Jersey KATHLEEN C. HOCHUL, New York AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia TIM GRIFFIN, Arkansas STEVEN PALAZZO, Mississippi ALLEN B. WEST, Florida MARTHA ROBY, Alabama MO BROOKS, Alabama TODD YOUNG, Indiana Robert L. Simmons II, Staff Director Jenness Simler, Professional Staff Member Michael Casey, Professional Staff Member Lauren Hauhn, Research Assistant C O N T E N T S ---------- CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS 2011 Page Hearing: Wednesday, October 26, 2011, Economic Consequences of Defense Sequestration.................................................. 1 Appendix: Wednesday, October 26, 2011...................................... 35 ---------- WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2011 ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF DEFENSE SEQUESTRATION STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS McKeon, Hon. Howard P. ``Buck,'' a Representative from California, Chairman, Committee on Armed Services.............. 1 Smith, Hon. Adam, a Representative from Washington, Ranking Member, Committee on Armed Services............................ 2 WITNESSES Feldstein, Dr. Martin, George F. Baker Professor of Economics, Harvard University, President Emeritus, National Bureau of Economic Research.............................................. 4 Fuller, Dr. Stephen, Dwight Schar Faculty Chair and University Professor, Director, Center for Regional Analysis, School of Public Policy, George Mason University......................... 6 Morici, Dr. Peter, Professor of International Business, Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland, Former Director of Economics at the United States International Trade Commission..................................................... 8 APPENDIX Prepared Statements: Feldstein, Dr. Martin........................................ 43 Fuller, Dr. Stephen.......................................... 52 McKeon, Hon. Howard P. ``Buck''.............................. 39 Morici, Dr. Peter............................................ 63 Smith, Hon. Adam............................................. 41 Documents Submitted for the Record: The Economic and Fiscal Impacts of DOD Spending on the Commonwealth of Virginia in FY 2008, by Dr. Stephen Fuller. 77 The U.S. Economic Impact of Approved and Projected DOD Spending Reductions on Equipment in 2013, by Dr. Stephen Fuller..................................................... 97 Witness Responses to Questions Asked During the Hearing: [There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.] Questions Submitted by Members Post Hearing: [There were no Questions submitted post hearing.] ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF DEFENSE SEQUESTRATION ---------- House of Representatives, Committee on Armed Services, Washington, DC, Wednesday, October 26, 2011. The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:03 a.m. in room 2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Howard P. ``Buck'' McKeon (chairman of the committee) presiding. OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. HOWARD P. ``BUCK'' MCKEON, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM CALIFORNIA, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES The Chairman. The committee will come to order. Good morning. The House Armed Services Committee meets to receive testimony on economic consequences of defense sequestration. We are joined by a panel of top economists, who will share three distinctive perspectives with the committee, the macroeconomic impacts within the United States of further cuts to defense, the regional economic effects, which may vary from state to state, and the global dynamics of further cuts to our military. The committee has held a series of five hearings to evaluate lessons learned since 9/11 and to apply those lessons to decisions we will soon be making about the future of our force. These hearings also focus on the national security risks posed by sequestration. We received perspectives of former military leaders from each of the Services and the Joint Staff, former chairmen of the Armed Services Committees, outside experts, and Secretary Panetta and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dempsey. Today we will change direction and focus on the other side of the coin, the relationship between the U.S. military and the economy. As a fiscal conservative, I tend to oppose increasing Government spending for the purpose of job creation. But I think we must understand that the defense industry is unique, in that it relies entirely on Federal Government dollars. We don't spend money on defense to create jobs. But defense cuts are certainly a path to job loss, especially among our high-skilled workforces. There is no private sector alternative to compensate for the Government's investment. Secretary of Defense Panetta has said the cuts on the scale of sequestration will result in a 1-percent hike to unemployment and 1.5 million jobs lost. The Aerospace Industries Association released a report yesterday based on the analysis of Dr. Fuller, one of our witnesses today, that estimated just over one million industry jobs would be lost based on cuts to procurement and R&D [Research and Development] alone. When one factors in the separation of Active Duty service members and DOD [Department of Defense] civilians, the number is quite close to the DOD's. The impact is not proportional across all 50 states. Dr. Fuller's testimony suggests that nearly 60 percent of the jobs lost would come from just 10 states. One-third of the jobs lost would fall in three states: California, Texas and Virginia. How does this translate to the larger economy? In 2013 alone, growth in GDP [Gross Domestic Product] would fall by 25 percent. But the economy could be affected further, as the U.S. military might no longer be seen as the modern era's pillar of American strength and values. There is risk that some within the international community would try to take advantage of the fragile American economy and the perceived limitations on our military's ability to promote global stability. In these difficult economic times we recognize the struggle to bring fiscal discipline to our nation. But it is imperative that we focus our fiscal restraint on the driver of the debt, instead of the protector of our prosperity. With that in mind, I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today. Ranking Member Smith. [The prepared statement of Mr. McKeon can be found in the Appendix on page 39.] STATEMENT OF HON. ADAM SMITH, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM WASHINGTON, RANKING MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate you holding this hearing and this series of hearings that we have had to discuss the impact of defense cuts, and I think it is particularly appropriate that we have a hearing today that will focus on the economic impact of these cuts. I think there are critical issues to consider in that regard. The industrial base of this country is critical to our economy and obviously defense spending is part of maintaining that industrial base. So any cuts could potentially impact that. There is also the challenge going forward to our national security of losing key capabilities. There are certain things that the defense budget requires in terms of technological and business capabilities that, if we are not doing it, those capabilities go away. We have already seen that to a large degree in the satellite industry. We were I think roughly 70 percent of the international market for satellites. We are now down to about 25 percent and there are certain key capabilities in developing satellites where simply in the United States, you cannot find that. And that has a national security implication. We can always, as a country, rely more on domestic U.S. production than we can rely on foreign partners producing us those key capabilities for our defense. So I think those are key issues. I also believe that the innovation that is generated from much of the manufacturing that comes as a result of our defense industrial base has impacts on the broader commercial economy. I certainly see that in my own district. There are a lot of businesses that grew out of Boeing engineers, folks who were working on defense industry who had ideas that then spread out to the larger economy. The improvements that we have made in manufacturing to meet defense needs have implications for the private sector economy. But at the same time, the debt and the deficit are also key limitations on our economy. I don't think anyone can argue that. The size of our debt now and the size of our deficit and its projections out into the future are a definite threat to our economic health. And we have seen that. Investors are nervous about investing in our economy, unsure how we are going to handle our debt and deficit problems going forward. And we need to be mindful of that. And we need to be mindful of the fact that defense is 20 percent of the overall budget. You cannot look at a budget that is almost 40 percent out of whack in terms of our deficit and say that 20 percent of the budget has absolutely nothing to do with that. It does. You also have to look at other parts of the budget that are important to our economy; infrastructure is the one that leaps to mind; education, workforce development. These are all things that are also key to our economic development, and devastating cuts in those areas I believe would have just as big an impact to our economy as devastating cuts in our defense budget. So we have to be aware of that. Personally, as this committee knows, I believe that increasing the amount of revenue that we have available is critical to this effort. If you are concerned about the size of the impacts of the defense cuts, then you have to be prepared to make sure that there is enough money available to make sure that you don't do that. So I believe that balance needs to be struck. I also believe that it is a very, very difficult balance to strike. Let us face it, we are in a deep hole. None of these options are palatable. These are things that none of us would like to have to do, but when you are running a deficit of nearly 40 percent of what you spend, you have to face some very difficult choices. So I hope that the gentlemen before us will analyze those choices. Honestly, look at the budget deficit that we are in and not simply look at one piece of it and say, ``Well we can't do that.'' Okay, well if we can't do that, what do we do in order to deal both our national security needs and with the deficit and debt challenges that threaten our economy as well? So I look forward to the testimony. Again I thank the Chairman for holding this hearing, and I yield back. [The prepared statement of Mr. Smith can be found in the Appendix on page 41.] The Chairman. Thank you. Now please let me welcome our witnesses this morning. We have Mr. Martin Feldstein from the George F. Baker Professor of Economics, Howard University, President Emeritus, the National Bureau of Economic Research. What did I say? Howard? That is different than Harvard isn't it? Thank you. They both start with an H. And we have Dr. Stephen Fuller, Faculty Chair and University Professor at George Mason University; Director, Center for Regional Analysis at the School of Public Policy. Actually all three of these gentlemen have very long bios--they are all very influential people. We are happy to have them here. Dr. Peter Morici, Professor of International Business, the Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland, former Director of Economics at the United States International Trade Commission. Welcome gentlemen. We are happy that you have found the time to be with us today and we look forward to your testimonies. We will begin with Dr. Feldstein. STATEMENT OF DR. MARTIN FELDSTEIN, GEORGE F. BAKER PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS, HARVARD UNIVERSITY, PRESIDENT EMERITUS, NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH Dr. Feldstein. Well thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I am very pleased to be here. I have been testifying to congressional committees for more than 30 years, but this is the first time I have had the opportunity to appear before this very important committee, so I welcome it very much. I have a longer statement that I would like to submit for the record while reading just parts of that to the committee. The Chairman. Without objection all three of your written testimonies will be included in the record, and you can speak as you desire. Dr. Feldstein. Thank you. In your invitation, you asked me to comment on the effect that reductions in defense outlays will have on total economic activity that is on the GDP of the United States. I am happy to do that, but I want to comment first on the larger subject of the national security consequences of reductions in defense spending, and then I would also be happy in response to questions to deal with some of the broader issues that Mr. Smith raised in his opening remarks. In considering the appropriate size of the defense budget, it is of course important to recognize the immediate threats to the United States and to our allies from Iran, from North Korea, from the rogue states and from various terrorists groups along with the current and growing challenge in cyberspace. But defense spending today must relate to the more distant risk from China's future military policy. Since China has more than four times the U.S. population, China's total GDP will equal that of the United States when its per capita income reaches only one-fourth of the U.S. level. Even if China's growth rate slows significantly from its current level, its total GDP will exceed ours in less than 15 years. And it is a country's total GDP that determines its potential military budget. Fortunately, the current Chinese political leadership is concentrating on promoting economic growth to raise the standard of living of its people. But China is also developing every aspect of its military capability. China's defense budget will grow with its GDP. It is important, therefore for us to recognize that future generations of Chinese leaders may use its larger GDP to pursue more aggressive policies. America's defense policy and our defense budget should therefore focus on these future generations of Chinese leaders and should recognize the virtual certainty of China's growing economic power. China's future military spending and its weapons development will depend on China's perception of what the United States is doing now and what we will do in the future. The United States, I believe should maintain a military capability such that no future generation of Chinese leaders will consider a military challenge to the United States or consider using military force to intimidate the United States or our allies. China is a resource-poor country so it is now buying oil in the ground around the world and land in Africa to feed its people. Some countries in the past have used military force to gain secure access to such materials. China's future leaders should not be tempted to follow that path. It is important also that our allies and friends like Japan and Korea, Singapore and Australia see the commitment of the United States to remain strong and to remain present in Asia. Their relations with China and with us depend on what they can expect of America's future military strength. We can't postpone implementing a policy of future military superiority until some future year. We have to work now to develop the weapon systems of the future. We have to maintain the industrial and technological capacity to produce those weapon systems. While reducing fiscal deficits is very important the task should not prevent the Federal Government from achieving its primary responsibility of defending this country and our global interests both now and in the future. Let me turn now to the narrower economic question of how cuts in defense spending affect U.S. GDP. Since Government spending on defense is a component of GDP, the immediate direct effect of a $1 billion reduction in domestic defense spending is to reduce our GDP by $1 billion, one for one. The resulting reduction in pay to military personnel and in compensation to the employees of defense suppliers then causes their spending as consumers to decline. And if defense suppliers expect the reduced level of the spending to be sustained, they will also cut their investment and equipment. The total effect of a $1 billion reduction in defense spending is to reduce GDP by more than a billion dollars, perhaps about $2 billion. Under current conditions, reductions in future budget deficits and in the resulting future national debt, will also raise the confidence of businesses and households needing to increase business investment and increase consumer spending, and that in turn will raise current GDP. But a similar confidence effect would result from legislated reductions in any form of Government spending so we can ignore this confidence effect in comparing the impact of reductions in defense spending with the effect of other spending cuts of equal size. The effect on GDP of changes in defense spending is larger than the corresponding effect of most other potential changes in Government outlays. For example, outlays for unemployment benefits are not in themselves a component of GDP. They lead to increased GDP only by raising the consumer spending of the individuals who received those benefits. While a high percentage of those cash benefits will be spent, it will certainly be less than a dollar of spending for every dollar of unemployment benefits. In some of the consumption purchased with the unemployment benefits would otherwise have been paid for out of reductions in household saving. A change in unemployment benefits also affects GDP by altering the incentive to remain unemployed. Reducing the maximum number of unemployment weeks will induce some individuals to find work sooner, thereby raising GDP. The overall effect on GDP of reducing U.I. [unemployment insurance] benefits will be the net effect of the reduction in consumer spending and of the increase in weeks worked. So the adverse impact on GDP of a $1 billion reduction in unemployment benefits would certainly be less than the direct effect of a $1.0 billion reduction in defense outlays. I will stop there and just say that I hope that these remarks are helpful to you as you consider the important tasks of deficit reduction in protecting our national security. I look forward to your questions. Thank you very much. [The prepared statement of Dr. Feldstein can be found in the Appendix on page 43.] The Chairman. Thank you. Dr. Fuller. STATEMENT OF DR. STEPHEN FULLER, DWIGHT SCHAR FACULTY CHAIR AND UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR, DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR REGIONAL ANALYSIS, SCHOOL OF PUBLIC POLICY, GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY Dr. Fuller. Thank you very much, pleased to be with the committee this morning. I have submitted a prepared statement but also two reports. I undertook a report for an analysis for the Commonwealth of Virginia several years ago regarding the economic impact of DOD spending in the state. It covered all types of DOD spending; personnel as well as contracting and retirement benefits. [The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on page 77.] It was undertaken because the state was beginning to be concerned about changes in defense procurement policies and spending policies within the state and it is a very important part of the economy. So it provides some insight about what would happen if you take that spending away. I also, just as you mentioned Mr. Chairman, released a report, it was released yesterday on the impacts of reduced spending for aerospace and military equipment acquisition. [The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on page 97.] Dr. Fuller. So I would just summarize some of those impacts. They follow in character the same kinds that you would see at the national level, changes in GDP, but in this case, state and local economic activity would be affected, changes in unemployment, changes in personal earnings. Summarizing what I found at the state level, and this would be just for Virginia, but it would be characterized of other states that have some dependency in their economy on defense spending, and this would be for fiscal year 2008. The GDP effect or gross state product effect in Virginia, DOD accounts for 15.6 percent of total economic activity in that state. It also supported almost 903,000 jobs within the state, that is, roughly 19 percent of total employment in the Commonwealth of Virginia was related directly or indirectly to DOD spending, supported about $44 billion in taxable personal earnings. And we also looked at the fiscal impact. DOD businesses and military bases and personnel do demand some services from the state, but they also generate taxes. And the net effect in the state was $1.1 billion. So as we look at the Commonwealth of Virginia, even, you know, just several years back--but it certainly hasn't changed dramatically, maybe become even more important as the rest of the economy has retracted over the recession. DOD clearly is a very important source of economic activity, personal earnings, jobs and fiscal benefits if in the absence of that spending, the state's economy would have been 15.6 percent smaller. It would have had almost 19 percent fewer jobs and it would have faced a budget gap of $1.1 billion in fiscal year 2008. That gives it some perspective--I think, perhaps, more relevant as you drill down in the analysis that I have just completed for the Aerospace Industries Association. I was asked to examine the impact of reduced spending in fiscal year 2013 for the acquisition of aerospace and military equipment, just a segment of the DOD budget. The number that I examined includes some reductions that have already been approved and some that could possibly evolve totaling $45.01 billion. The effect of this is this rolls through the economy. It starts with a decrease in sales of about $164 billion. So for every $1 decrease in the purchase of military equipment by DOD, it would generate an additional $2.64 in sales losses in other businesses. I will explain that a little bit further. If you take those sales losses as they roll through the economy, it would cost the economy. And by my calculations 1,006,000 jobs; these are full-time, year-round equivalent jobs. Only about 35 percent of those are in the aerospace and military equipment manufacturing sectors. In fact, only 125,000 of those are manufacturing jobs specifically to the production of these products, these military hardware. The other 65 percent are jobs on Main Street. They are jobs that are supported by the payroll spending of workers in the aerospace and military manufacturing industry. Their payroll and the payrolls of the other companies that work for those industries, so it is the primes and their entire supply chain, their spending supports jobs everywhere. Just like your spending and my spending for coffee or for water or for a mortgage or for our automobiles. And by taking their payroll out of the economy, the payroll losses would total something on the order of $60 billion. Taking that out of the economy would cost the economy over a million jobs. That would add a 0.6 percent to the unemployment rate. Current unemployment rate is 9.1 percent right now; it would raise that to 9.7 percent if this happened this year as opposed to in fiscal year 2013. There are also non-wage income reductions. So, sales of products and services to the aerospace and military equipment manufacturing sector would decline; also sales within the remainder of the economy. There would be less lettuce being purchased. It just rolls right on through the economy. Another $27 billion lost there. If you roll these up into one number, GDP, it would result, at least just from that $45 billion decrease in 1 year, would generate $86.5 billion in lost GDP, so, roughly 2 to 1 as we just heard. Given the state of the economy as projected for 2013, that would constitute about 25 percent of the anticipated growth. So, without that cutback we would have 25 percent more GDP growth than without it. Slow the GDP growth rate that is now projected for 2013 from 2.3 percent to 1.7 percent. Now, these numbers could change. But it has a measurable effect. These numbers and these losses affect every state in the country because the suppliers of goods and services span all of the states, not just the actual prime or their immediate supply chain. Ten states would represent roughly 6 percent of these losses. Ten states being led by California, Texas and Virginia. But these 10 states would lose 600,000 jobs, or could lose, if that reduction occurs as I have analyzed it. So, the economic impacts can be measured. There is one other type of impact that I can't measure, but we know takes place. Many of the companies that supply goods and services to DOD contractors are quite small. They are specialized. And when they lose part of their work they go out of business. They just can't downsize 25 percent and still stay in business. They can't shift their market to a different consumer. Their base is quite narrow. And so the impact on business failure is just one of those kinds of corollary effects that we know happens. We have seen it around military bases that have closed or changed or downsized, sort of the BRAC [Base Closure and Realignment] effects. We see it here in D.C. on Georgia Avenue where businesses have lost some of their consumer market, and they have just had to close down because they couldn't stay in business at that scale of work. So, there are some collateral effects, I think, that need to be considered. I ran over my time. I am glad to answer questions. Thank you. [The prepared statement of Dr. Fuller can be found in the Appendix on page 52.] The Chairman. Thank you. Dr. Morici. STATEMENT OF DR. PETER MORICI, PROFESSOR OF INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS, ROBERT H. SMITH SCHOOL OF BUSINESS, UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND, FORMER DIRECTOR OF ECONOMICS AT THE UNITED STATES INTERNATIONAL TRADE COMMISSION Dr. Morici. Thank you, sir. Like Professor Feldstein I have been coming up here for--is it working? The Chairman. Yes. Dr. Morici. Like Professor Feldstein I have been coming up here for several decades. But this is the first time that I have been to this committee. And I am honored to have this opportunity to speak to you. The United States faces, after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are concluded, much broader security challenges than it faced a decade ago. The most significant of these is the whole issue of cyber defense and China. We now have on the global stage a country that does not share our values and institutions, that is much more capable of growing, and growing in ways that are attractive to other nations in the world. And we need to consider that in evaluating what kind of defense capabilities we will need going forward. It is important to recognize that after World War II the United States gave the world a clear prescription for prosperity and peace, and that was free markets and democracy. And we were quite successful in constructing a system that defines globalization, the rules of the road, that strongly supports the notion of free markets. For example, the World Trade Organization dramatically constrains, at least in theory, the behavior of governments as they treat participants in global commerce. It constrains Government policies from tariffs to Government procurement to conditions imposed on foreign investors to import and export. And you know, we now have to ask ourselves the question: Can the United States survive in a world of its own creation? This body of law that we have created that defines the rules of the road is quite sympathetic to American institutions, the way we raise our children, the way we play the game. So, we are very comfortable competing under those terms. China offers a very different model. They have an autocratic government that is very efficient. We are mindful of governments in the 1930s for directing industrial development. And it just simply doesn't share our democratic values, let us not kid ourselves. And China has ambitions in the Pacific, which it has outlined, and probably ambitions more globally owing to its need for natural resources that it has not yet admitted to. So, it is very important to recognize the interplay between the security challenge and the economic challenge. China offers the world a different model for economic development, and if we don't meet the China challenge both economically and from a security perspective, then we can expect the rules of the game to change because more nations in the world will find what China does attractive. The WTO [World Trade Organization] and other international institutions are a consensual system. That is there is no overarching authority that says they have to abide by these rules. They can change them as they go along. And frankly, China has said someday China will make the rules. Those rules will be very different in a world where more countries, you know, think that China's model of economic development is attractive and effective. China has effectively exploited the system that we have created. There has been much testimony in many committees to that effect. It is a subject of national debate. For example, China's exchange rate policy and so forth. The failure of the United States to address that forthrightly and with substantive actions has two important consequences. One is that it reduces our credibility with nations around the world. We are increasingly violated. Whether it is exchange rates or rare earth minerals, the United States is violated. And it is not one administration or the other. This has been an ongoing process for many years. But also it increases China's influence and it makes it easier for China to project power in the future and to project its values. Now, certainly it is important to recognize the reason we are having these discussions today is because we don't have enough money. And one of the reasons we don't have enough money is we simply haven't been growing. Each successive recovery for many years now has not been as strong as the previous one. And over time we have developed a very large trade deficit. Economists will tell you that one of the reasons we can't get out of this funk is because we have got this big trade deficit. Well, the trade deficit really just adds up to two forces: The big deficit with China, which is the result of its unanswered mercantilist policies; and the deficit we have on oil, which we have imposed on ourselves. If we had chosen to address these problems, we simply wouldn't be in the funk we are in, we would have more GDP, we would have more tax revenues. And the problems that we face, while still large, would not be nearly as large as they are today. There are a lot of myths about the budget problem and about the defense challenge from China, which I think bears some attention. One is that defense is the problem. Defense is only a very small part of the problem. Over the last 4 years Congress has decided to expand spending by $847 billion, of which defense was you know only a small portion. And of that $847 billion, only $62 billion was needed to account for inflation, according to the budget deflators published by the President in his annual budget report. So, clearly we are spending a lot more money; 11 percent of it was for defense. The rest of it is other purposes. Why, I don't know. The myth persists that somehow or other there is going to be a big peace dividend. I know that Congress has allocated monies for the wars, and that is not part of this discussion. But apparently one of the ways we have paid for the wars is by not paying attention to the aging of our force structure, the quality of our fighters, their age, their bombers--things of this nature. You are all familiar with those things; the size of our fleet. We simply have less capability other than ground troops, and the capability is much older and it needs to be modernized. I ask you, how can we ask sons to fly the planes their fathers flew? That is going on today. How well would we fight a war against a cyber-attack with 15-year-old computers? But yet we are going to defend our country with 25-year-old jet planes. I find it preposterous. The myths persist that China will not be able to challenge the United States any time soon in terms of the size of its defense spending, because at current exchange rates, that only comes to, you know, about 17 percent of the U.S. budget. But China's currency is dramatically undervalued. If we use purchasing power exchange rates, then its defense spending is 27 percent. At the pace at which it has grown over the last couple of years, and given the projections that we have for the base budget without sequestration, China could easily be at about 60 percent of our spending in 10 years. Now 60 percent is still less, but it doesn't have to maintain a fleet in the Mediterranean. It doesn't have to maintain a fleet in the North Atlantic. It is not watching the Persian Gulf. It doesn't have troops stationed in Korea. All it has to worry about is securing the resources that it needs and projecting power in the Pacific, which is its stated goal. It is going to be very difficult for the United States at current spending levels to match China if they can devote all of their 60 percent to those purposes and we are so spread out. Our needs are growing, and it is silly to think that there is some sort of peace dividend out there that is going to permit us to spend significantly less. Another problem that we have is this misperception that American technology is so superior that we can rely on that, that somehow or other we are going to think our way out of this problem. I don't see that happening simply because the pace at which industry is moving from the United States to China and becoming much more sophisticated there, I mean, Boeing is operating there, General Electric is operating there. They are becoming participants in the Chinese economy in two very troubling ways--and I don't mean to single out those two companies; they are just nice examples--and that is they are becoming clients of Chinese mercantilism. So whenever we talking about doing something about it, there is an army of lobbyists up here. I don't know why China has litigation in this town. Caterpillar does a perfectly good job for them when it comes to the currency. Likewise, they want to participate in the Chinese economy. They want to prosper. So it serves their interests to help the Chinese develop their technology. And, you know, there are limits to the extent to which we can avoid technology transfer of a vital national security nature. The Chinese will be able to develop it on their own quite soon. Look at my engineering school, or the engineering school at any university in the country. Look who goes to school there. The Chinese will have the resources they need to do this. If we permit Chinese mercantilism to go unchallenged and we permit the projection of Chinese power in the Pacific to dwarf American naval and other capabilities, then what choices will countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and India have to make about the economic development models they choose? And what will that mean for the character of consensual institutions like the World Trade Organization? Remember, that organization will evolve over time, and the rules will change. The United States will be isolated or more isolated, especially when you consider the state of our allies in Europe and their economic condition. It will be more--the world as we know it is a very comfortable world for U.S. commerce and that will change. I agree with all these numbers. Basically, if you cut defense spending by $1 billion, you are going to get a multiplier effect of one-and-a-half to two. One hundred thousand dollars per job, it is very easy to figure out how many jobs you are going to lose. But more fundamentally, we are going to live in a world that is more hostile to our economic and democratic values. It is going to be more difficult for us to succeed economically in that climate. We are just not attuned to it. So unless we defend these values now, we will live in a world that is just not suitable to American success. And that is not a world I choose for my grandchildren to live in. [The prepared statement of Dr. Morici can be found in the Appendix on page 63.] The Chairman. Thank you very much. After the last election, Congress received a clear message. The primary concern of the American public is the economy. Americans want their government to get spending under control, reduce the Federal deficit and adopt policies to stimulate job growth, particularly in the private sector. We got that message. But we can't ignore the fact that while cuts to the military might reduce Federal spending, they harm national security and they definitely don't lead to job growth. You have outlined a variety of economic consequences of further defense cuts, yet this is something we seldom hear about in the news. It has kind of been left up to our committee to explain these facts to other Members of Congress and to the members of the public. At least two estimates, Secretary Panetta's and Dr. Fuller's, put job losses at over $1 million should sequestration occur. In arriving at those numbers, did you use the cuts that the chiefs are already working on? I had a meeting with Admiral Mullen shortly before he retired. And he said they had given instruction to the Joint Chiefs to cut $465 billion over the next 10 years. That is already in motion. That is already happening. That is already part of the equation. The sequestration of $500-$600 billion would be on top of that. Did you take those numbers, Dr. Fuller, into account in your study? Dr. Fuller. My analysis included the first tranche of that for fiscal year 2013 that was specified in the Budget Control Act. That portion is about $19 billion in reduced acquisition outlays for aerospace and military equipment, just that $19 billion is included in the number that I use. And I added another $25.5 billion to it, which would be the amount if sequestration that the proposed or possible sequestration continued. But it was just for that 1 year. The Chairman. Just for the 1 year, the 2013. The number that is out there in the public from that deficit reduction is $350 billion. But based on what happened in the C.R. [Continuing Resolution], and the starting point that you choose, and the budget request of the President and our budget passed last year, there are a lot of different starting points. But I am using that $465 billion, which takes into account the $78 billion that Secretary Gates talked about cutting, and the $100 billion that he asked for from the chiefs earlier, to inefficiencies, when he said they could still keep it to use for other things. But when he came back, he said, well, they couldn't keep $24 billion of it. That had to be used for other expenses. So if you add those numbers to the possible sequestration, you are talking, over the next 10 years, almost $100 billion a year. So it is a big, big number, and I appreciate your comments on that. And it seems like you have addressed those and how it is going to affect our job loss, how it is going to affect our economy, and then how it will affect us in our defense posture and our economic posture going forward throughout the world. I recently visited with the ambassadors from Vietnam and Singapore, and they were very concerned. The Vietnam Ambassador said China is claiming the China Sea, which would make us landlocked, and that would tie in with what you talked about, Dr. Morici, about the China Sea and that area. Yes? Dr. Morici. Well, consider this: If China can project several hundred miles into the Pacific, Japan is within its sphere of influence, and it is the third largest economy in the world. We are supposed to guarantee Japan's security. The Chairman. And Taiwan and other countries in the area. Dr. Morici. The thing about it is--what I hate to think about is Japan's industrial establishment--consider the situation we are in right now, because of the threat of another recession in Korea. Korea's shipbuilding industry is extraordinarily important to that economy. And it is facing, because of the slowdown in global commerce, a very short order book going forward. It has got to figure out what to do with those shipyards. Now it might be beyond the control of the United States in a similar situation, 6, 7, 8 years from now, from those churning out ships for the Chinese Navy, or just merchant marine ships for China. And then they can turn their shipyards to other less useful purposes. But more than that, we are in a little bit of the Greek problem here. Whether we talk about cutting health care or education or defense, unless we find some other way to stimulate the domestic economy, it is going to have multiplier effects and make the pie smaller and the tax revenues available to us less. So we will be back here again after the next election, and 2 years after that. And we will be--we are kind of in a slow-motion version of Greece. They do it every 3 months; we are going to do it every 2 or 3 years. We have to cut, then there is less, then we cut again. Unless we find a way to stimulate the domestic economy, the only way out of this box is to deal with the largest drain on domestic demand, and that is the trade deficit with China and the deficit on oil. There was a time when we had to have the deficit we have on oil. We no longer have to have that. And it will not be resolved by whiz-bang electric trains from nowhere to no place in Illinois or by electric cars. It will be resolved by developing the oil and gas we have, because those other technologies are only going to come online so quickly. Now we can either develop them or not, but we can get no environmental benefit. But with regard to China, there is the whole issue of if we do not address the currency problem and its other mercantilist activities, we are making our defense problem impossible, because we simply won't be able to afford to deal with it. The Chairman. Thank you very much. Mr. Smith. Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In terms of confronting the broader deficit problem--and there is a bunch of different ways to go at this--and, certainly, I agree; some of you have commented about things that were done in the past that, you know, led us to where we are at, and we can all have a robust debate about what all of those were. But we are where we are. Dr. Morici. Yes, right. Mr. Smith. So, you know, if we could skip that for the moment, what would you recommend going forward in terms of confronting the deficit? How much do we have to reduce it by, because that is certainly a legitimate point of debate, whether or not we should, you know, be focusing on reducing the deficit by, I don't know, $4 or $5 trillion, or whether or not a lesser amount makes sense? And then once you pick your figure by how important it is to reduce the deficit by how much, given that what I gather from your testimony, you don't even think that the $460 billion in defense cuts that are currently proposed should happen. So that is off the table. What would you propose at that point--and if we could be specific on the spending, because then I like to say everyone is sort of, you know, is against the Federal Government spending in the abstract. It is in the concrete that people tend to get a little mealy-mouthed about it. So if we could lay out the specifics of what we should cut in the budget, or what you think should happen with revenue and where the deficit is at going forward, because that is what the ``super committee'' [Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction] is wrestling with. Dr. Feldstein, do you want to start? Dr. Feldstein. Well, I will take a crack at that. We are heading according to the CBO [Congressional Budget Office], as you know, to a debt-to-GDP ratio that will be about 80 percent and rising more or less without limit if we don't do something. The key driver of that is, of course, the entitlement spending. Since I don't run for office, I have the luxury of saying we have to do what the Bowles-Simpson Commission said, we have to bring under control the growth of Social Security and of the Government-financed health programs--Medicare and Medicaid. What is the target? The target ought to be to stabilize the debt-to-GDP ratio at the kind of levels that we have had for decades in the past, about 50 percent. And that means getting the deficit down to about 2 to 3 percent of GDP. We don't have to balance the budget, but we do have to get the deficit down to about 2 or 3 percent of GDP. So we need large enough cuts in spending and/or increases in revenue to get us to that goal. Mr. Smith. Do you believe that we need the increases in revenue as part of that equation? Dr. Feldstein. I do. I think we can get increases in revenue without raising marginal tax rates---- Mr. Smith. By reforming the code? Dr. Feldstein [continuing]. By reforming the code. And I think the directions for doing that, there are various options, but I think putting a cap on the maximum amount that each individual can get in tax benefits by various so-called tax expenditures, putting a cap on that, letting people continue to have all of the deductions and exclusions that are in the code, but putting a dollar cap relevant to their adjusted gross income on that would produce a lot of revenue and allow us to reduce marginal tax rates at the same time. Mr. Smith. That makes a great deal of sense. Gentlemen, do you want to weigh in? Dr. Morici. Yes, I agree with Professor Feldstein, I have to say, about the deficit-GDP ratio, and the need for tax reform. There are a lot of different ways we can go about it. But he is basically talking about flattening--not a flat--but flattening the tax rate. So it makes sense to me; makes a lot of sense. In terms of where we can cut spending, one of the things I have recently written--and as you know, I publish widely in op- eds and all this sort of thing--is that if you look at what the United States Government is proposing to do for its people, it is not outrageous as compared to successful countries in Europe, namely Germany, Holland and, say, what Japan does in terms of the amount of health care and so forth. The real problem is we are terribly bad at it. We spend 18 to 19 percent of GDP on health care. The Germans spend 12. But, you know, let us not fool ourselves. This is not a public versus private issue. You know, whenever you talk about really reforming health care, as opposed to doing what happened last year, and that is just vote for more benefits and spend more money, when you really talk about reforming it, it is always cast in terms of, well, are we going to continue to have a private system, a good old American system? Or are we going to have one of those socialistic government-run systems? Well, the fact is, the Germans finance 80 percent of health care through a private system, through reimbursement. There is a wide variety and many dimensions to health care systems that are used, and some are successful and some are not. Ours is private, and it is unsuccessful. It just simply does not deliver the benefits. If we started to look seriously at, for example, how the Germans manage the pricing process for drugs and patenting, we could save a lot of money on drugs. They spend $400 a year. We spend $800 a year. They are healthier than us. Something is wrong. They also don't have commercials of ladies jogging to sell Boniva, and guys running to the bathroom. They don't spend all that money. We do. And that is silly. But we need to start looking at that, and we need to stop fooling ourselves among conservatives--and I am a conservative--that we can do this without government intervention, because we simply don't have a private system when we have 55 percent of it funded by the Government. It is setting prices. Likewise, let me not say that hospitals should be put on a diet, without saying that universities should be put on a diet. If we look at how we educate people today, the amount of time that it takes to produce a doctor or a Ph.D., it is silly. The Europeans just do it better. Also, if we look at the amount of research that is going on in American universities, and what it generates--I mean, you know, things of that nature. We could spend a lot less on education, but you are going to have to make people who are constituents of Members of Congress on both sides unhappy. Mr. Smith. Absolutely. I want to let some other folks--some of my other colleagues get in here. I would like to have a further conversation with you about China at some point, and, you know, what our realistic options are for confronting their rise; because they are going to rise. Dr. Morici. But we want to get on a better set of rules. Mr. Smith. Right. Right. I yield back. Thank you. The Chairman. Thank you. Mr. Bartlett. Mr. Bartlett. Thank you. If every afternoon when we left here we broke all the windows, which would then be placed overnight in preparation for the next day's work, this could create a lot of jobs. For those who provide the energy, to turn the sand into glass, for those who haul the glass here, for those that installed it, and then all those secondary industries, the dry cleaners, the grocery store and so forth. Would this have a long-term positive economic benefit? Dr. Morici. I could think of better ways of spending your money that smacking windows and replacing them. If you improved your roads, you wouldn't be destroying something in the process to replace it. You know, that is like saying let us knock down the George Washington Bridge and rebuild it to create jobs. Why not repair all the broken bridges and make the traffic move better? Mr. Bartlett. Your answer indicates, then, that there is a fundamental economic difference between jobs in the sectors of our society which consume wealth and the sectors of our society which create wealth. Dr. Morici. I don't think I said that, sir. I said there is a difference between destroying something to create a job and improving something that is broken. Mr. Bartlett. Okay. We could also create a lot of jobs if we simply had people dig ditches and then fill them up again. Dr. Morici. Same principle. Mr. Bartlett. Or haul stones from---- Dr. Morici. Same principle. Mr. Bartlett [continuing]. Site A to site B. Yes, sir. Dr. Morici. Same principle. Mr. Bartlett. Okay. I think your answer is implying that you believe that there is a fundamental difference in the sectors of our society that consume wealth and those that create wealth, from a purely economic perspective. Dr. Morici. I think if---- Mr. Bartlett. If we ignore the fact that we have got to have a military and it is going to be too small, I think, with these cuts, if we totally ignore that, and we just look at jobs, aren't jobs in our military in the sector that consumes wealth? Dr. Morici. All jobs consume wealth. All jobs consume resources. We have judges. Judges consume wealth, but they provide a framework for commerce--contract law. A safe world provides highways for commerce; places for boats to go unimpeded. And the projection of American power for the last 75 years has been responsible from democracy almost being extinct in 1939 to prospering in the world, and for the spread of market institutions which has created great wealth-- that has a certain overhead. Mr. Bartlett. So then there is no---- Dr. Morici. The foreign services--the same thing, sir. We could say the same thing about diplomats. I don't know where we are going with this. Mr. Bartlett. We are making the point that we may continue on this committee that national security is enormously important; that a military--adequate--is enormously important. But, today, I thought we were talking simply about economic effects. Dr. Morici. Well, the point is that if you denigrate the economic system, so it is hostile to American economic institutions, the United States will not be able to compete competitively, and our GDP will be decidedly smaller 25 years from now than it would be in a more favorable environment. Mr. Bartlett. I have no argument with what you are saying. Dr. Morici. Okay. Mr. Bartlett. But I thought today we were simply talking about economic effects---- Dr. Morici. Well, the economic effects of cutting---- Mr. Bartlett. And I must confess that although I am not an economist, I am concerned that about every 12 hours we have another $1 billion trade deficit. That is more than a $1 million-a-minute trade deficit. You know, if we could increase our economic growth by simply increasing the activity in a service-based economy, then if we all took in each other's laundry for $100 a load and cut each other's hair for $100 a haircut, we would have an enormously increased economy, would we not? Dr. Morici. Well, no, eventually you will run out of money, because you have to import oil to generate the electricity to run the restaurant. Mr. Bartlett. So you are making my point that unless you have people in that sector that is creating wealth---- Dr. Morici. I share your concern about---- Mr. Bartlett [continuing]. Forever spend wealth. Dr. Morici. Exactly, and I share your concern about the trade deficit. That is why I say that we cannot afford the defense that we need unless we resolve that problem, because the economy will grow too slowly. If we could cut the trade deficit in half, using the same multipliers, if we could cut it in half, we could increase U.S. GDP by a very sizable amount, and create about 5 million jobs over the next several years. It would have a preponderant effect on unemployment, and the economy would grow much more rapidly. But that requires addressing China and having a favorable set of rules in the global economy. Mr. Bartlett. And if we don't, disaster awaits us. Thanks very---- Dr. Morici. Exactly. I think it is in the last paragraph of what I submitted. And I was trying not to be too emotive, but basically I say that if we do not move in the direction that we need to move in, you know, America will become isolated and dramatically weakened. Marginalized, it will resemble Italy or Greece--charming and quaint, but hardly able to independently sustain its standard of living or ensure its own security, or worse bankrupt and at China's doorstep for a bailout. We are on the path to becoming Greece. Greece did the very same thing. It borrowed from foreigners to sustain its standard of living. Right now, we are borrowing from foreigners to finance our military and our health care. Thank you. The Chairman. Thank you. Ms. Sanchez. Ms. Sanchez. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and thank you gentlemen for being before us today, although this has got to be one of the strangest hearings that I have had to endure on this committee, to tell you the truth. You know, I always look at sitting on this committee as something from a strategic standpoint. I mean we have to look forward into the future and try to figure out with our military experts what the world will look like and what we need to address issues that may come up. And we have been working on that for the last 15 years that I have been on this committee. We have not only done that type of planning but we have done things like transformation, where we decided we would get a lot of our troops out of Germany and bring them back home. I know that when we did that and we increased the size of Fort Bliss and my colleague Mr. Reyes's area and over these last few years, he has had about a $6 billion infusion and building more base and constructing--they are about to start constructing a hospital and housing and bringing our troops and their families home here. And I think the multiplier effect, which I know we just got a lecture from one of you on, it is pretty big on construction, and so I think that his economy has gotten better because we moved out our troops, a large majority from Germany and brought them here. You know when I looking at my operating area, one of you guys talked about the small contractors I have in my area. You know, they have not had business for the last few years because those monies for real systems have been cannibalized by the Afghanistan and Iraq operating costs of being over halfway around the world fighting a battle we just really don't seem to get anywhere with. And they have had to remix their customer base. So those that have survived so far know how to do that. They are just not in defense anymore. And then I think about the day maybe a couple years ago when I heard on the news that a gallon in Afghanistan costs me $400 to move my troops, and I couldn't believe it, and I went to the head of the appropriations defense committee and he looked at me and he said that is absolutely true. Now in California we scream when it is $4 a gallon. So I ask myself if we weren't in Afghanistan or we weren't in Iraq and I only had to spend $4 for a gallon of gas in California, where would that other $396 go? So I think it would be invested right here in the United States. I think Roscoe Bartlett was correct when he said when we are at war and we are not getting anything for it, we are really not getting anything for it, we need to figure out, it is not that difficult to figure out where to get the money to bring some of this defense spending down. I think the monies come from getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan. I think what we did before when I talked to the former Comptroller for George Bush, Mr. Walker, he said 70 percent of the deficit we created during those 8 years, 6 of them under total Republican control up here, the White House, the House, the Senate was because we didn't raise revenues. So you can't have it both ways. You know, you just can't. We have to decide what military we need for the future. We have to decide that we are not winning in places, and we need to get our troops home and there is some fat to be cut. But I would agree with you, Mr. Chairman, $465 billion is a lot to put on the table. I am not too thrilled about putting much more on there. But I think we are much better capable here on this committee to figure out how to make those cuts than to have a macroeconomic impact come and tell me what I already know. The more money I keep here in the United States, the better off I am going to be at seeing people go back to work. So I don't know what this hearing really was called for, but I agree with you. We have put a lot on the table. We don't want to put much more on. But I think the sooner we get out of those wars, the better off we are. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Chairman. The purpose of this hearing is to find the economic impact of these cuts that we are seeing from defense from economic experts. I am going to yield a couple of seconds to Mr. Bartlett to respond to what you said he said. Mr. Bartlett. Perhaps because I am a scientist, I have a penchant for wanting all facets of an issue to be on the table. So I frequently end up the devil's advocate. It may be sometimes difficult to differentiate my personal positions and my devil's advocacy positions. Thank you. The Chairman. Thank you. Mr. Forbes. Mr. Forbes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, gentlemen, for your expertise and for being here. I just want to kind of bring us back to the jurisdiction of the committee. We have the rules of the committee and they are basically on defense policy, ongoing military operations, the organization and reform, the Department of Defense and it is not just this hearing. Over and over again, we have folks on this committee that don't want to talk about those aspects. They don't want to talk about them unless they can talk about increased revenue, which is the kinder and gentler way of saying increased taxes or entitlements, kinder and gentler way of talking about Social Security or Medicare of spending, which is our stimulus programs, but the purpose of this hearing is because when we make defense decisions, it comes down to two things: Is this a strategic benefit and secondly, what is the economic cost of doing it? On the strategic benefit, it comes down to risk and as one general told me yesterday, the number of people who come back from a particular mission. And I just take issue, I don't think that is breaking windows and replacing them by digging ditches. When I am talking about trying to fight to reduce the risk, I am talking about fighting to make sure I have more people come back than otherwise would come back. And that is important for this committee to do, and it is a big difference, and I disassociate myself with that line of discussions. But the second thing is we should be looking at the economic cost of making any kind of decisions we are making. So on the one hand we are told we are told you are going to save all these dollars and what you gentlemen are here for today and I thank the chairman for doing this, is to say are we really saving all those dollars or is there going to be a cost on the other side that is going to offset some of those dollars? And Professor Fuller, when I look at your studies, you looked at R&D costs and procurement costs, that is what you have, but I don't think you even took into consideration O&M [Operations and Maintenance] and reduction of active duty forces and reduction of civilians. But just based on your study, you look at a state like California on the one hand we are saying we can save all these monies, but if we do this, we are talking about cuts that are going to equal three times the largest employer in California. When you look at Virginia, it is six times the largest employer in Virginia; Texas, it is over one time the largest employer in Texas; Florida, larger than the largest employer in Florida; in Massachusetts, over two times the larger employer in Massachusetts; in Maryland, the largest employer in Maryland, gone; in Pennsylvania--the largest employer in Pennsylvania almost; in Connecticut, three times the largest employer in Connecticut; in Arizona, three-and-a-half times the largest employer in Arizona; and in Missouri, you are talking about roughly three times the largest employer in Missouri. We need to put those costs on the table when we are saying okay over here you are going save all this, we need to let all these states and people know we are not saving it, we are just passing it on to you because basically you are going to lose a lot of jobs in making this decision so you just need to say does it make economic sense to try to save a dollar here if you are going to lose two dollars over here. And I thank you guys for your study that helped us at least evaluate that. Now Professor Fuller, have I misrepresented anything your study has said? Dr. Fuller. No, not at all. I think it is important to recognize, as you pointed out, that this is just a part of the budget. It is just equipment and so it doesn't include personnel, it doesn't include gasoline, it doesn't include the purchases of goods and services needed to operate. Mr. Forbes. Which is going to make a much greater impact. Dr. Fuller. This is roughly 45 percent of the $100 billion a year that it could be sequestered. But I think the important issue with this paper and the kind of work that I do is just to identify that there is an economic consequence. Somebody has to evaluate better---- Mr. Forbes. And that is what the Chairman has been kind enough to let us do before we make a decision in the (?). And Dr. Feldstein, one of the things that you have correctly pointed out is as we reduce our spending, doesn't that have an impact on the reduction in defense spending with our allies around the world and it encourages China, I think by your testimony to spend more, which means if we try to come back later, we are going to have to spend more money to have a lower capability vis-a-vis China. Can you just elaborate on that just a bit? Dr. Feldstein. Yes, I---- Mr. Forbes. Your microphone. Dr. Feldstein. The point that I wanted to emphasize in the first half of my testimony was the fact that China inevitably is going to have a larger GDP than ours, will have a larger capability of spending on defense, and that we have to be prepared in advance to stop them from taking advantage of that to try to intimidate the United States and our allies. So I think that is very important, and it is not something we can postpone. Can I make another related point? We are talking about cuts in defense spending, but we are talking about it in an environment in which the economy already has a 9 percent unemployment rate and many others who are on part-time work, so we are making worse the weakness of the American economy by cutting spending in the short run. In the long run there are different issues. But in the short run we are making it worse and what I have advocated in the past in writing was that we ought to ask the military services if they can move forward in time some of the replacement and repairs and inventory rebuilding that is going to happen anyway in the future. Mr. Forbes. And my time is up. Mr. Chairman, I just want to thank you for having this hearing so we make these decisions with the information and not blindly making them and thank you gentlemen for your expertise. The Chairman. Can you be very brief? Dr. Morici. Very brief. Going forward, when we talk about what our allies can do, I think that realistically speaking what is going on in Europe, the only places we can look for real significant assistance in meeting security challenges--and this is going to be very difficult for you to deal with--is Germany and Japan, because everybody else is pretty flat out. The Chairman. Thank you. Mrs. Davis. Mrs. Davis. Thank you Mr. Chairman. Thank you all for being here. I agree. I think part of the difficulty is here that there are a lot of different perspectives on this issue, and it doesn't feel as we are getting all of that. What I was interested in hearing is that I think that there are a number of things that you have mentioned which tend to go along the line of stimulus spending. I agree. I mean in some ways it would make a lot of sense if the military would identify those machineries, equipment, carriers, et cetera, that really could be put on a fast track, and that we could spend in those areas. But at the same time we are talking about that, it almost appears as if, you know--if we just tripled or quadrupled the defense budget, all of a sudden we would have a lot of stimulus spending. And I don't think we would agree that that makes any sense. So we need to think more in--we try to do that in this committee--think in terms of a whole-government approach from time to time, and in what areas we can actually find greater growth or development that really mitigates the defense budget; and whether we could be helping ourselves along if we spent more in some areas. That means we don't have to spend quite so much on defense. Can you comment on that? Would you like to? Dr. Feldstein. Yes, I think you hit the right word--``fast track.'' That is the idea that I was suggesting is not to increase total defense spending over the next decade, but to take some things that might be done in 2014 or 2015 and tell the military to hurry up and do it now when we have got a lot of unemployed resources. Hopefully a few years from now the economy will be back at full employment and we won't be able to do that. But now when we have got so many unused industrial resources, would be the right time to do some of the replacement and some of the repairs and some of the inventory rebuilding that will have to be done later. So it doesn't add to the total debt over the next 5 years; doesn't add to total defense spending over the next 5 years. It just pulls it forward to a time when we have a lot of slack in the economy and would give a boost to aggregate spending. Mrs. Davis. Yes, sir. Do you want to comment? Dr. Morici. And I am not a defense expert, which I freely acknowledge. I mean my background is in international economics; international relations; international agreements. But it seems to me that in the post-Afghanistan era the nature of American force structure is going to have to change dramatically because we are going to be largely facing a naval challenge and a cyber challenge with China. And that doesn't mean we don't need any ground forces at all, but I don't know that we are going to need 100 maneuver battalions any longer. We may need less. I don't know how that all works out, but within even the same pie, I mean the fact that our fleet is shrinking is very troubling to me when China is launching aircraft carriers. Mrs. Davis. I think what is difficult is sometimes setting those priorities. We try and do that. We use the QDR [Quadrennial Defense Review]. We use a whole number of other factors, but trying to set those priorities of what we truly need to plan for the next war, which is obviously a difficult one to do. Dr. Morici. I don't know that there is a next war as much as there are going to be interesting confrontations about who gets to sail where. Mrs. Davis. Yes. Yes. One of the other things that you have brought up along stimulus spending, I think is roads, bridges. We know Simpson-Bowles of course dealt with infrastructure as well as it dealt with decreases in defense spending. You have mentioned Simpson-Bowles and that being not necessarily a model, but at least a jumping-off point for talking about the situation that we are in today. Do you feel that they went overboard when it came to defense spending within their recommendations? Dr. Feldstein. I do. They said $100 billion of domestic and $100 billion of defense. So that was not the kind of carefully thought-through analytics of how much we need for defense. It was just saying, ``Here is a way of doing something that appears on the surface to be fair.'' But that isn't what our defense planning ought to be about. It ought to be thinking through what our needs are. And again I just keep emphasizing your words about ``fast track.'' Doing something sooner in spending in defense that has to be done eventually makes, to me, an enormous amount of sense in an economy that has so much slack, so much unused resources, and won't forever. We are going to get back to full employment. Mrs. Davis. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Chairman. I---- Dr. Morici. Just 10 seconds? The context of thinking about China and the Pacific has changed dramatically in just a few years. The notion was we didn't really have to worry about them because their defense spending was small just a few years ago. So I think that you need to look at the context in which recommendations were given and the context that we are in now. The Chairman. Thank you. Mr. Wilson. Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank all of you for being here today. And I appreciate that what you are focusing on is facts. And I want to commend one of our colleagues, Congressman Randy Forbes, who has produced a memorandum that I hope the American people have the opportunity to see. It is ``Strong Defense, Strong America'' and, Dr. Morici, it hits right on point about Army Brigades since 1990-- they have decreased from 76 to 45; Navy ships from 546 to 288; bombers from 360 to 154. There has been an extraordinary reduction in our capability, and the American people need to know this. This is at forbes.house.gov/strongamerica. And in dealing with facts, Dr. Morici, in your statement that you provided, there were some startling facts I believe the American people need to know. And that is, in 2007, there were two wars. We had the tax cuts in place. The deficit was $161 billion. But in 2011, the deficit was $1.3 trillion and you further explain there was an $847 billion increase, but people need to know that the increase of the defense budget was 11 percent of the $847 billion. These facts, really the American people are not aware. Then we get to a myth, and I would like for you to explain this myth. You say that there is a belief that the United States spends too much money on defense and winding down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will create a peace dividend. And you indicate that is a myth. Can you explain that to us? Dr. Morici. We have been through this before. We went through it with Vietnam. You did appropriate monies over and above your base of about--what is it, $573 billion--$575 billion to fight the wars? And you look at defense spending. It is seven-something, not five-something and that is the war budget. However, those extra appropriations were monies that could have been spent in other ways. And one of the things that has happened over the last several years, as you have pointed out, is our ability to project power has shrunk. We have fewer planes, fewer boats, things of that nature. But also that things have gotten old and we are going to have to make sizable investments as we reconfigure what we have to address the challenges we will have that are different. But we are going to have to do an awful lot of modernization. I simply don't think you would like to be operating with 15- or 20-year-old computers. I don't know why we should be flying 25- and 30-year-old fighters? They do get old after a while. Mr. Wilson. Additionally, you indicate that it is very important that we stimulate the domestic economy. Well, we are all quite interested in that. And I appreciate that you raise the issue of domestic energy production. I would also like to point out last week I was in Alberta, Canada. That every dollar spent by the United States, and Canada is our leading importer of oil to us, every dollar or 90 cents is spent back in the United States, including in the District, buying tires-- Michelin. So it is positive. Can you explain again about stimulating the domestic economy? Dr. Morici. There is a little bit of difference between financing energy development in Alberta and funding it in Nigeria, okay? But, essentially, if we could free up domestic oil and gas development that will provide the same kind of stimulus as road construction, but it would be private money. It wouldn't increase the deficit; it would reduce it because it would generate tax revenues. It is the same stuff. It is steel. It is cement. It is all the good stuff that people like, you know, when they do those things. Likewise if we did something substantive about the trade deficit, it would create manufacturing jobs. It would create tax revenue and it would reduce the deficit. You know, there are things we can do to stimulate the private sector right now. And that would not cost you any money. And they would have the same kind of effect as stimulus spending and make your life easier. Mr. Wilson. And more jobs in Alberta, more jobs in America. Mr. Feldstein, the multiplier effect from military spending, can you explain the difference between military spending as opposed to other public spending? Dr. Feldstein. Military spending is a direct component of GDP. So every dollar that is spent on military procurement or military salaries is another dollar of GDP directly. In contrast, if you spend money on, say, transfers to state and local governments, that is not immediately or directly a component of GDP, so it doesn't add to GDP directly, only when those states and localities spend that money. Now if they spend every dollar of the transfer, well then it would be like defense. But typically they will use some of that money to replace money that would be funded out of rainy day funds or by raising taxes and so you get less than a dollar to start the process. And so that is why defense spending has a bigger multiplier, has a bigger impact on GDP then spending on other things. Mr. Wilson. Thank you all very much. The Chairman. Thank you. Mr. Johnson. Mr. Johnson. Thank you. Defense spending has a bigger multiplier than spending, say, on grants to state and local governments, with a specific purpose to retain the employment of teachers and police officers, firefighters and other public service workers? Dr. Feldstein. If every dollar that gets transferred to a state is used for that purpose---- Mr. Johnson [continuing]. For that purpose? Dr. Feldstein [continuing]. Then it is the same as defense. Mr. Johnson. And---- Dr. Feldstein. If they would have paid out of---- Mr. Johnson. And I understand that. You are assuming that the money would be spent for purposes other than what the Federal grant or the Federal allocation to the state would require. But let me move on because I think we have heard talk of Government stimulus of the economy; Government spending on defense. And, of course, the purpose of defense spending is to secure the nation, as opposed to stimulate the economy. But it does have that incidental impact, and that is undeniable. Isn't it a fact that when you spend money for infrastructure; when the country invests dollars in infrastructure--roads, schools, and the like--broadband extension--those things create jobs as well? Is that correct? Dr. Feldstein. Absolutely, yes. Mr. Johnson. And so it has the same impact--domestic spending for infrastructure has the same impact as defense spending? Dr. Fuller. I would like to disagree a little bit---- Mr. Johnson. Hold on. I will let you all come in. But what we are talking about here, basically, is a philosophy of Government spending. If you are going to spend on defense and it has a purpose of--or it has an incidental effect---- Dr. Morici. There is a difference, sir---- Mr. Johnson [continuing]. Of stimulating the economy---- Dr. Morici. No, there is a difference---- Mr. Johnson. Hold now. Dr. Morici. No, no, no, it is not a philosophical difference. It is a technical difference. Mr. Johnson. I have got the mike. Dr. Morici. Okay. Mr. Johnson. And I am entitled to my view of things, and I am entitled to ask questions based on those views. You may disagree, and I think that there is room for disagreement. We just simply need to, in this Congress, have more of a will to discuss the issues instead of just say, ``No.'' You know, I don't think there is anybody who wants to just say no to defense spending. We can't ride around in 30- and 40- year-old planes and operating on DOS operating systems on our computers with 20-year-old hardware. No, we can't do that. We have to continue to invest in our military. But since we have, kind of, bordered upon, here, talk of economic stimulus, if you will, I think that this is an appropriate philosophical issue for us to address. And you apparently disagree with me as far as the effect of domestic spending, domestic spending for infrastructure. Dr. Morici. Yes, sir, I do. And can I explain why? Mr. Johnson. Okay, please. Dr. Morici. I understand there is a genuine philosophical difference in this room, in this Congress, in this country, between the desirability or the positive systemic effects of defense spending versus the positive systemic effects of education spending or to keep firefighters on the job and so forth. I acknowledge that. However, there are technical differences that are not ideological or philosophical in nature. When you spend a dollar of Government money on widgets--let us keep this neutral--if the widget manufacturer gets all of his materials in the United States and employs entirely U.S. labor, it will have a higher multiplier effect than if the widget manufacturer uses imported steel. And there is a difference in that defense spending tends to have a greater domestic content than does a construction project. We use a lot of imported materials in construction. So there is that kind of measurement issue. Mr. Johnson. I mean, what is the difference between the materials that we would use in domestic spending as opposed to---- Dr. Morici. Well, for example, suppose---- Mr. Johnson. We would use the same steel from the same source---- Dr. Morici. No, actually, there are 700 different kinds of steel made in the United States. Construction steel tends to be more commodity steel, basically folded cold-rolled steel that you see in two-by-fours. You can import bridges. The kind of steel---- Mr. Johnson. And is it American companies that are the ones that have moved those operations---- The Chairman. The gentleman's time has expired. Mr. Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Chairman. Mr. Scott. Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And, Dr. Fuller, I represent the Eighth District in Georgia. Specifically, Robins Air Force Base is the largest industrial complex in Georgia, and a lot of good men and women are working there, taking care of the warfighter. Where would Georgia fall in that list of job losses, in the top ten? Are we in the top ten? Dr. Fuller. It is not in the top ten. But, in this case, these top ten are just in the manufacturing and production of aerospace and equipment, so it didn't include personnel. Mr. Scott. Okay. Dr. Fuller. And that would change that list, if we were talking about military personnel or civilian contracting by DOD. Mr. Scott. If you have those numbers, I would like to see those numbers. First of all, I voted against the sequestration and the potential for it. And I think, maybe, the point that I would like to again make is that, when we spend money through the Department of Defense and we are purchasing equipment, that, by definition, creates manufacturing jobs, doesn't it? Dr. Fuller. Enormous job impact. I mean, and that is one of the differences with this kind of spending and some of the other kinds, when you are talking about that the employment multipliers are higher because some of those employment multipliers are driven by payroll. Mr. Scott. Yes, sir. Dr. Fuller. And that just spreads out across the economy. But the supply chain is very broad and very long in military- equipment manufacturing. Mr. Scott. And so is it a fair statement to say that our challenge as America is that our GDP is not growing anywhere close to as fast as our competitors, both in industry and our potential military competitors in the future? Is it fair to say that that is our real problem right here and why we are having all of these discussions? Dr. Feldstein. Well, there is a short-run problem and a long-run problem. And in the short run, we are growing at about 2 percent, and that is not enough to begin to absorb all the excess unemployment. Mr. Scott. Yes, sir. Dr. Feldstein. So that is a serious problem. In the long run, we are not going to grow as fast for the next decade or two decades as China or India or other countries that are still very poor on a per capita basis and will be catching up with us. But as I emphasized in my testimony, in both of those cases, their populations are much larger. Mr. Scott. Yes, sir. Dr. Feldstein. And therefore, long before their per capita income even comes close to ours, their total GDP and therefore their ability to support a defense budget will be much larger than ours. Dr. Morici. Yes, may I? It is important to recognize a distinction between the quantity and quality of growth. With China growing at 9 percent a year and the United States growing at 2 percent, the U.S. position is being fundamentally degraded. And the two lines cross sometime in the next decade, and the best defense posture--that is just not a good situation to be in. However, if we address the trade deficit with China; if we balance trade with China and develop their own oil and gas, then not only would we be growing more rapidly, but we would be doing it by manufacturing more, by undertaking more R&D, so the quality of U.S. growth would be very good, and we would be able to maintain for a very long time our technological edge. We have a lot of assets in the United States that are underutilized, and are on the verge of atrophy. For example, Congress, in its wisdom, created the land grant universities. So we have a plethora of engineering schools in the United States. Mr. Scott. I am getting very short on my time---- Dr. Morici. Okay, but you see what I am--it is the quality of growth as well. If we grow at 4 percent, we are not just going to grow double; we are going to grow better. Mr. Scott. Absolutely. But 4 percent GDP growth, I think, is a very reasonable and good goal that we should have for this country. This country can, and Americans can, grow at 4 percent GDP. My point is that the cuts that the military is being asked to take is going to further reduce our starting point in getting back to that 4 percent GDP, which I think is the point that you have tried to make as well. Dr. Morici. Yes. Mr. Scott. One of the things I would ask each of you to take a look at, and then I will yield back the remainder of my time--one of my primary concerns is the President's budget revenue estimates. I hope that you will each take a look at that--for 2010 he is saying the revenue from corporate taxes, $191 billion; 2011, $198 billion; 2012, $327 billion; 2013, $397 billion; 2014, $478 billion. Those are pretty strong growth projections that he has built into his budget. And I would appreciate it--certainly, I respect each of you--if you would take a look into the tables where he has put some, I think, pretty robust assumptions. Dr. Morici. Well, I have looked at the--by the way, this Administration is not novel, but the President, in his February budget, assumed about 4--it is in my testimony--about 4 years or 5 years of 4-percent growth. And since we are not growing at that pace, it just means the revenues aren't going to be there. Mr. Scott. And it means the deficits will be larger? Dr. Morici. That is why we will be back at this in 2013, after the election. The Chairman. Mrs. Hanabusa. Ms. Hanabusa. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Professors. Dr. Fuller, beginning with you, I just have a clarification question. In your testimony on the top ten states, you said that they are manufacturing only. Can you tell me why you selected the manufacturing component in arriving at the ten states that would lose the most in terms of jobs in thousands, as well as the funding in terms of gross state product? Dr. Fuller. Well, if I left the impression it is only manufacturing I misspoke. What we do with DOD spending for equipment, which starts with manufacturing, but it also supports a very, very large--almost eight jobs in non- manufacturing for every one job in manufacturing. So, the job numbers that I have here include manufacturing and all of the corollary jobs or support jobs that go with those industries. Ms. Hanabusa. So, it would be like a multiplier impact of loss of one job in manufacturing and DOD related situation, and then how it affects the other ancillary---- Dr. Fuller. Yes. It is only 12 percent of the total are the---- Ms. Hanabusa. Right. Right. Dr. Fuller [continuing]. Direct aerospace manufacturing jobs. Ms. Hanabusa. Okay. And you said that if you were to translate that to personnel, just loss of personnel, you would have a different ranking of the states. Dr. Fuller. It could very well have included the purchase of oil and other kinds of support commodities that the military consumes. I don't know what the answer is, but I suspect-- Virginia gets more DOD spending of all kinds on a per capita basis than Texas and California. But Texas was number one last year in total. So, there might be some rearrangement of the ordering in this. Ms. Hanabusa. And is that readily available, so you could give it to us? Or is that something you would have to calculate? Dr. Fuller. No, it is published every year. It would be easy to get it for you. Ms. Hanabusa. Thank you very much. Both Dr. Feldstein, as well as Dr. Morici, gave a strong testimony on China. And I represent Hawaii, so you can imagine my interest in the Pacific. Dr. Feldstein, first beginning with you, you said something in your testimony that I was interested in. And you said that you know we have to define the debt and GDP ratio. And you said about 50 percent. Did I hear you correctly? And then you said to get deficit down to 2 percent to 3 percent of GDP. Was that something---- Dr. Feldstein. Historically, our debt ratio has been 50 percent or a bit less for decades now. But it is getting way out of control. And to get it back to that it would take bringing the annual deficits down to the 2 percent to 3 percent range. Ms. Hanabusa. Of GDP. Dr. Feldstein. Of GDP. Ms. Hanabusa. So, so that I am clear, for example if we agree GDP is almost $15 trillion, $14.7 trillion, somewhere around there, and the debt that you are speaking to that we would have to get down to would be about 7 point whatever. Are we talking about the same thing? Dr. Feldstein. If it were to be true today, yes. Ms. Hanabusa. Right. Dr. Feldstein. Exactly. Ms. Hanabusa. Thank you. Dr. Morici, you said in your testimony something that caught my eye. You say without a strong economy and military capable of meeting the emerging challenge posed by China in the Pacific, American values in the U.S. economy cannot succeed. And then you said something else, which was--and I am going to ask you how you relate the two or what you think we should do. You said large American multinationals, which have invested in China to serve the market, have been clients of Beijing's protectionism, and invest in the middle kingdom mercantilism. I haven't heard middle kingdom used in a while. And so I guess what I am looking at is as you say that we have this definite need in terms of a military power to look at China. And yet we have our own in China. And I think the end result of this was the transfer of technology. And I think that is how you are drawing it together, that we think China doesn't have the technology that we have, but China's taking care of our great, big manufacturing. And you are assuming that the technology will transfer. So, can you tell me how you are putting these two statements in, and what you think the ultimate result is going to be if we let this continue? Dr. Morici. Well, essentially, in order to manufacture, to sell in China, you have to manufacture in China. That is why their exports to us exceed their imports from us 3.5 to 1. That is a huge spread. I mean, one of the best-selling vehicles in China are Buicks. But we can't export them. Now, in a recent example, to benefit from the subsidies that they have, like we do, for electric vehicles they want to require General Motors to transfer its EV [electric vehicle] technology, its Volt technology. We are establishing labs in China that have the effect of people gaining experience, developing backgrounds and so forth, which is transferrable, whether it is software or the design of computers or the development of aircraft. By having design facilities in China people work there. They learn. They quit their jobs. They go someplace else and they can do the same thing. I mean, the same sort of thing happens in the United States, but we are developing this for them. Ms. Hanabusa. Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Chairman. Dr. Fuller, the study that you put out yesterday for the AIA [Aerospace Industries Association], you have the top ten states. But I understand you have that for all the states? Dr. Fuller. I do. The Chairman. Could you make that available to us, please? Dr. Fuller. I will. The Chairman. Thank you very much. Mr. Young. Mr. Young. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Appreciate all of our panelists being with us today. It has been an interesting hearing, and I really appreciate the chairman holding this hearing; first a comment, then a question. The comment is, as we make defense spending decisions here in this country I think it is important to clarify our greatest consideration should not be the multiplier effect of any given Government spending. It should not be, you know, other considerations. First and foremost, it is military strategy. None of you pretend to be military strategists, and so we defer to them. First and foremost is these different tradeoffs are made, assessments of risk and proposals to mitigate the risk. And so I just want to make sure that is clear. That is not the purpose, as I understand it, of this hearing. Dr. Morici, a question about the trade deficit with China, something you brought up a number of times, probably a little outside the scope of this hearing. But since we have heard it so many times, I am going to give you an opportunity to fill in some concrete policy suggestions as to what could be done here at the Federal level since it does in fact have implications for employment in the defense sector, our country's growth and whatnot. Dr. Morici. I am not alone in making this suggestion. While I am known as a conservative economist, and sometimes referenced to a political party of which I am not affiliated, economists, shall we say on the other side of the aisle, have made the same suggestion. And that is that one way or another we could put a tax on Dollar-Yuan conversion so as to raise the value or raise the price of buying in China and investing in China to what it would be if China revalued its currency. We could determine the tax by dividing the value of its foreign exchange purchases, its currency intervention, which are quite transparent, published by the Bank of International Settlements and the IMF [International Monetary Fund] by the value of its exports. That would dramatically change the price of Chinese goods in the United States, and change buying habits and sourcing habits. It would also affect investments into China, and it would be in China's hands because China could reduce that tax by reducing its intervention and letting the value of its currency rise. Mr. Young. Thank you. I suspect you have published on this topic, and could direct me towards at least an article you have written? Dr. Morici. I am sure I could do that. Mr. Young. Are there articles critical of your position that you could also direct me to, perhaps? Dr. Morici. I suggest you find them on your own, but some people would say that that is a protectionist position. And my position is that what China is doing is protectionist---- Mr. Young. All right. All right. Dr. Morici [continuing]. That we are in a trade war and they are shooting and we are, you know, using a pea shooter. Mr. Young. And if you could restate your earlier point about the quality of GDP growth as opposed to the number there--I lost that point. Dr. Morici. If the United States were to resolve its trade problems by dealing with China and oil, we would be manufacturing a lot more in the United States, which would finance a great deal more R&D. And that would create a lot more employment, for example, for American engineers, which would raise their wage rates and encourage young people to register in engineering programs. You know, one of the reasons that students major in finance instead of electrical engineering is because it pays better and there are more jobs. And one of the reasons there are more jobs is simply because we have this trade deficit. So, my feeling is it would improve the quality of human capital in the United States. And it would also result in us having a greater treasure trove of patents and knowledge and things that we could sell to the world. Mr. Young. So this would translate into more sustainable GDP growth into the future. That is the benefit in terms of quality. Dr. Morici. Right. And on top of that---- Mr. Young [continuing]. Would be broader as well. Dr. Morici. That is right. The income issues are very different. By encouraging finance in this country, we encourage the problem that we have. But on top of that, we are going to have to acknowledge Professor Feldstein's point. China is a very big place. And until the Chinese grow old from the One China policy, which is not until the next century, we have got a problem. So, we are going to have to have a technological edge if we are going to survive. We are going to have to be smarter. And we are going to have to have a better industrial capability to do that. And right now, on the path we are on at 2 percent growth, we are mining out and denigrating our industrial and R&D capability. Mr. Young. I yield back. Thank you. The Chairman. Thank you very much. Excuse me. When I went to the Steering Committee to try to get the job as chairman of this committee, I told them that I saw the job as chairman of the committee to lookout for the defense of this Nation. And specifically to make sure that all of our people in uniform that are out on point defending our freedoms, wherever they may be around the world, have all the equipment, the training, the leadership, all of the things they need to carry out their missions and protect us, and return home safely. I am very concerned about the cuts that are in place, and those that we can see coming down the line on defense. We have held five hearings now to hear from specific experts on military and former Members of Congress who have chaired this committee to find out what their feeling was about the impacts of these defense cuts on our defense and on carrying out that mission with regard to those who defend us. I also think, though, that it is important that the Nation understand that these cuts will have significant economic impacts. And without a hearing such as this, they are not hearing that. In fact, most of the Members of Congress don't even understand or know of the significance of the cuts that we have already made. That is, again, why the hearing. So I appreciate you being here. I understand that you haven't testified before this committee before, and maybe we haven't ever looked into the economics before, because that does fall under the purview of other committees. But in this particular case, it does have significant impact on our job as members of the Armed Services Committee, and I appreciate you being here today, and I appreciate your testimonies. And Mr. Smith, do you---- Mr. Smith. Well, I thank you for the hearing as well, and I think the last conversation from Mr. Young there is very important. The industrial base really matters here, and I think going back to Mr. Bartlett's, you know, digging holes and refilling them, I think there is certain types of spending that make a bigger difference, and I think defense, because of the manufacturing base that it has developed, and the workers' skill set that it develops, that what I hear a lot from our defense contractors, is if you say, well, we are going to take a pause. We are not going to build submarines for a couple of years; you can't come back a couple years later and have the subcontractors and the skilled workforce that is necessary to build that submarine or aircraft carrier or bomber. You need to maintain that industrial base and also the manufacturing skills that are developed in doing that; have private-sector applications as well. And you can begin to develop products, whether it is in energy or health care or any other number of different other sectors, where you begin to manufacture and produce things in a way that help your broader economy. Now I happen to think this line of argument also applies to broad infrastructure building, that if you are talking about bridges and energy and roads and maybe even trains, even--not specific train, if you don't like it, but some sort of infrastructure product--go ahead. Sorry. Understood. That is fine. You know, that type of infrastructure also has those same benefits, that you--you are manufacturing; you are employing the workforce that will grow wealth and move you forward in a more positive direction. So it doesn't just apply to the defense area, but I think I really do think that is the biggest argument folks don't understand out there--the importance of defense spending to our industrial base and our manufacturing economy. So I think this hearing has been very helpful, and I appreciate all of your gentlemen's testimony. I appreciate the chairman for having this hearing. I yield back. The Chairman. Thank you very much. This hearing stands adjourned. Thank you. [Whereupon, at 11:51 a.m., the committee was adjourned.] ? ======================================================================= A P P E N D I X October 26, 2011 ======================================================================= ? ======================================================================= PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD October 26, 2011 ======================================================================= Statement of Hon. Howard P. ``Buck'' McKeon Chairman, House Committee on Armed Services Hearing on Economic Consequences of Defense Sequestration October 26, 2011 The House Armed Services Committee meets to receive testimony on Economic Consequences of Defense Sequestration. We are joined by a panel of top economists who will share three distinctive perspectives with the Committee--the macroeconomic impacts within the United States of further cuts to defense, the regional economic effects which may vary from state to state, and the global dynamics of further cuts to our military. The committee has held a series of five hearings to evaluate lessons learned since 9/11 and to apply those lessons to decisions we will soon be making about the future of our force. These hearings also focused on the national security risks posed by sequestration. We received perspectives of former military leaders from each of the Services and the Joint Staff, former chairmen of the Armed Services Committees, outside experts, and Secretary Panetta and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Dempsey. Today, we will change direction and focus on the other side of the coin--the relationship between the U.S. military and the economy. As a fiscal conservative, I tend to oppose increasing Government spending for the purpose of job creation. But I think we must understand that the defense industry is unique in that it relies entirely on Federal Government dollars. We don't spend money on defense to create jobs. But defense cuts are certainly a path to job loss, especially among our high skilled workforces. There is no private sector alternative to compensate for the Government's investment. Secretary of Defense Panetta has said that cuts on the scale of sequestration will result in a 1-percent hike to unemployment and 1.5 million jobs lost. The Aerospace Industries Association released a report yesterday, based on the analysis of Dr. Fuller, one of our witnesses today, that estimated just over one million industry jobs would be lost-- based on cuts to procurement and R&D alone. When one factors in the separation of Active Duty service members and DOD civilians, the number is quite close to DOD's. The impact is not proportional across all 50 states. Dr. Fuller's testimony suggests that nearly 60 percent of the jobs lost would come from just 10 states. One-third of the lost jobs would fall in three states--California, Texas, and Virginia. How does this translate to the larger economy? In 2013 alone, growth in GDP would fall by 25 percent. But the economy could be affected further, as the U.S. military might no longer be seen as the modern era's pillar of American strength and values. There is risk that some within the international community would try to take advantage of the fragile American economy and the perceived limitations on our military's ability to promote global stability. In these difficult economic times, we recognize the struggle to bring fiscal discipline to our Nation. But it is imperative that we focus our fiscal restraint on the driver of the debt, instead of the protector of our prosperity. With that in mind, I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today. Now please let me welcome our witnesses this morning. We have:LMr. Martin Feldstein, George F. Baker Professor of Economics, Harvard University, President Emeritus, National Bureau of Economic Research; LDr. Stephen Fuller, Faculty Chair and University Professor, George Mason University, Director, Center for Regional Analysis at the School of Public Policy; and LDr. Peter Morici, Professor of International Business, Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland, Director of Economics at the United States International Trade Commission. Gentlemen, welcome to the House Armed Services Committee. We know this may be an unusual venue for you and this is a first for us. Thank you again for being here. I'm sure there is much we can learn from you. Statement of Hon. Adam Smith Ranking Member, House Committee on Armed Services Hearing on Economic Consequences of Defense Sequestration October 26, 2011 I would like to thank the witnesses for appearing here today. We are in a time of significant uncertainty concerning the budget, and the advice provided by the witnesses will be extremely helpful in understanding the impact of potential defense sequestration. Our country faces a long-term, systemic budget dilemma--we don't collect enough revenue to cover our expenditures. According to the House Budget Committee, we currently must borrow about 40 cents for every dollar the Federal Government spends. If we're going to fix this problem in the long run and avoid sequestration in the short run, I believe that we must address this from both ends--spending will have to come down, and we're going to have to generate new revenues. Like many, if not most, of our members here, I share the view that large, immediate cuts to the defense budget caused by sequestration would have dangerous impacts on the ability of the U.S. military to carry out their missions. I am also deeply concerned about cuts to all non-entitlement spending, which bore the brunt of the recent deficit deal, and which also directly or indirectly support the jobs of thousands of American workers. This committee is properly focused today on the impact of the defense budget on jobs, but we also serve a larger body--the American people--and we owe it to them to approach the budget and jobs debates carefully and comprehensively. If we can avoid sequestration, I believe that we can rationally evaluate our national security strategy, our defense expenditures, and the current set of missions we ask the military to undertake and come up with a strategy that requires less funding; indeed the Department of Defense is currently focused on just such an evaluation. Sequestration would make that rational evaluation impossible, which is why it must be avoided. But it is also important that we address the revenue side of our budget problem. Recently, some of my colleagues on this committee issued dire warnings about the potential impacts of additional defense budget cuts. I share their concerns, and that is why we must consider raising additional revenue. In order to avoid drastic job losses caused by cuts to our military and other important programs, revenue must be on the table. It is my hope that this hearing will help remind everyone here that we have to make some serious choices. Our budget problems must be looked at in a comprehensive manner. If we are serious about not cutting large amounts of funding from the defense budget, something else has to give. Large, immediate, across-the-board cuts to the defense budget, which would occur under sequestration, could do serious damage to our national security. They would also likely result in thousands, if not tens of thousands, of Americans losing their jobs. Sequestration would have a similar impact on American workers in cutting other non-entitlement spending. In order to avoid these large cuts and the resulting job losses, we're going to have to stop repeating ideological talking points and address our budget problems comprehensively, through smarter spending and enhanced revenue. Thank you again, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing. And thank you to our witnesses for appearing here today. 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