[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 54 (Thursday, March 23, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Page S4486]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


DISCONNECT BETWEEN THE FUTURE YEARS DEFENSE PROGRAM AND THE PRESIDENT'S 
                                 BUDGET

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I would like to continue my discussion 
on the integrity of the Department of Defense budget.
  Yesterday, I examined accounting disconnects in four key areas of the 
defense budget.
  Now, I would like to turn to the budget/future years defense program 
disconnect or the plans reality mismatch, as it is sometimes called.
  This is about the disconnect between the Future Years Defense Program 
or FYDP and the President's budget.
  I first became aware of this problem in the early 1980's, after 
hearing about the work of Mr. Chuck Spinney--an analyst in the 
Pentagon's Office of Program Analysis and Evaluation.
  Mr. Spinney treated the Senate Armed Services and Budget Committees 
to a stack of his famous spaghetti diagrams at a special hearing held 
in the Caucus Room in late February 1983.
  This was an unprecedented event.
  It was the only joint Armed Services/Budget Committee hearing ever 
held.
  Moreover, it took place despite a concerted effort by certain DOD 
officials to suppress Mr. Spinney's work and block the hearing.
  In a room filled with TV cameras and bright lights, Chuck Spinney 
engaged the Reagan defense heavyweights in battle.
  Cap Weinberger was the Secretary of Defense at the time.
  When the day was over, Mr. Chuck Spinney had skewered them with their 
own spear.
  Mr. Spinney had used Secretary Weinberger's own FYDP data to expose 
the flaws in his massive plan to ramp up the defense budget.
  This was the crux of Mr. Spinney's Plans/Reality Mismatch briefing:
  The final bill for Weinberger's fiscal year 1983-87 FYDP would be 
$500 billion more than promised.
  Mr. Spinney's outstanding performance won him a place on the cover of 
Time magazine on March 7, 1983.
  That was 12 years ago.
  Again, all of this stuff happened before 54 of my colleagues ever set 
foot in this chamber.
  Well, the brawl over the build-up led to a slew of reform 
initiatives: The Carlucci Initiatives; the Grace Commission; Nunn-
McCurdy legislation; two Packard Commissions; Goldwater-Nichols 
legislation; and the Defense Management Review.
  We were told that these initiatives would cure the disease, but they 
didn't.
  The same old problem persists. Nothing has changed. Nothing has been 
fixed.
  And things may be getting worse--as the budget vise is tightened 
down.
  The money gap between the Pentagon programs and the budget persists.
  Today, the GAO figures that the FYDP is overprogrammed by at least 
$150 billion.
  That's a conservative estimate, too.
  The CBO has come up with a somewhat lower estimate but a gap 
nonetheless.
  There is a consensus on the problem but not on the solution.
  Should we pump up the defense budget to close the gap--as some of my 
Republican colleagues suggest?
  My Republican friends seem bound and determined to start up that 
slippery slope toward higher defense budgets.
  They want to repeat the mistakes of the 1980's.
  They want to rip open the national money sack at both ends and get 
out the big scoop shovel.
  But why and for what?
  The Soviet military threat is gone.
  The cold war is over.
  We need to begin balancing the budget.
  And DOD's finance and accounting operation is flat busted.
  And if it is really busted like I think it is, then DOD does not know 
how much money it needs right now.
  Nor does anybody else.
  Leadership and better management are the only solution--not more 
money.
  Well, in the 1980's--at the height of the cold war, Congress did 
approve major increases in the defense budget.
  That is true.
  But Congress refused to close the massive gap between the Pentagon 
FYDP's and the Reagan budgets.
  The gap was just too big.
  Yet that is exactly what some of my Republican colleagues want to do 
today.
  Cap Weinberger was Secretary of Defense when we argued this out 10 
years ago.
  He kept asking for more and more money.
  But Mr. Spinney's analysis of DOD's own data showed that the military 
was getting less and less capability.
  The topline kept rising.
  But so did the gap.
  The money sacks were piled high on the Pentagon steps, but there was 
never enough.
  By the mid-1980's, Secretary Weinberger's 5-year funding roadmap 
topped out at $2 trillion. That was the fiscal year 1986 FYDP.
  Congress just did not buy it.
  Congress put the brakes on and slapped a lid on defense spending.
  With the help of my Democratic and Republican allies, I was able to 
put a freeze on defense spending in 1985.
  We were convinced that all the extra money was just making matters 
worse.
  It was generating waste and abuse rather than more military strength.
  The spare parts horror stories kept pouring out and finally and 
completely discredited the defense budget buildup.
  Congress literally carved up Secretary Weinberger's ambitious 5-year 
plans.
  Take, for example, the fiscal year 1983-87 FYDP.
  It's price tag was a staggering $1.6 trillion plus.
  Congress balked and cut the plan back to $1.1 trillion.
  The final amounts appropriated were $600 billion below Weinberger's 
request.
  We never got close to the $400 to $500 billion a year defense budgets 
that Secretary Weinberger wanted.
  Mr. Weinberer's plans were unrealistic. They were not affordable, and 
they were totally out of line with what was really needed.
  That is exactly where we are today.
  Mr. President, that concludes my statement for today.
  Tomorrow, I hope to complete my discussion of the Program/Budget 
mismatch.
  I yield the floor.
  

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