Inflation doesn’t cause military budget cuts

The Biden administration and Congress are on track to back a record US defense budget, signaling Pentagon spending is untouchable even as Democrats and Republicans squabble over how to reduce the debt burden. The White House on Thursday is expected to request a Pentagon budget for fiscal 2024 that well exceeds the $816 billion enacted for the Department of Defense this year — the biggest-ever defense budget in nominal terms, and also one of the largest peacetime budgets when adjusted for inflation. Meanwhile, China, the biggest US peer competitor, said its defense spending would grow by 7.2% to $225 billion this year — the fastest pace since 2019 as tensions grow with the US over Taiwan and a range of security issues. Those who favor cutting defense have so far been drowned out by supporters of ever-higher defense spending to counter Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s muscle-flexing in the Indo-Pacific. “There’s no appetite among Democrats or Republicans, there is no majority appetite for trimming the overall numbers” for the Pentagon budget, Roger Wicker (Miss.), the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in an interview. “While some people may talk about that, it’s not likely to happen.”