Troop Pay Priority in 2000 Defense Budget

The new burst of defense spending, set in motion by a desire to help the military buy spare parts and recruit more troops, is proving a boon for some big weapons programs.

Formally unveiled Monday, the $261-billion fiscal 2000 defense budget would spread around money for three high-priced fighter planes, attack submarines and a heavy artillery system for the Army, among other projects.

Though it did not give military organizations all of what they wanted, the budget proposal generally would satisfy the services’ needs and keep some controversial programs alive to fight another day.

“Every service did fairly well, in some sense,” said Steven Kosiak, budget analyst with the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington.

Conversely, the plan disappointed foes of defense spending, and military reform advocates who had hoped the budget would force the Pentagon to make tough choices--and cut marginal or outdated programs.

“ ‘Anguish’ is the single word that describes it best,” said John Isaacs, president of the Council for a Livable World, an arms control group based here, which believes the Pentagon should cut spending sharply.

This year’s defense spending surge, coming after 14 years of decline, was driven by mounting concerns about the readiness of troops and the military’s increasing difficulty in recruiting and retaining personnel in some specialties.

After years of contraction, the administration’s budget proposes a $12.6-billion increase in outlays, and a hike of $112 billion over the course of the next six years.

Most of the new money would go to personnel, in a 4.4% pay increase and improved retirement benefits amounting to $35 billion, and to operations and maintenance budget increases totaling $49 billion.

But the procurement budget would rise to $53 billion, a 7% hike, in fiscal 2000, and would increase 15% more the next fiscal year, to more than $60 billion.

Procurement spending had fallen nearly 70% between 1985 and fiscal 1997, as budgets grew gradually tighter.

A big chunk of the new procurement money is for the fighter planes. Critics have argued that the Pentagon should not fund all three of the high-priced products, as U.S. aircraft are already far superior to their potential adversaries.

The proposed budget would spend $3.1 billion in the coming year on the planned F-22 Air Force advanced tactical fighter, which is expected to ultimately cost $158 million a copy.

An additional $3.1 billion would be spent in fiscal 2000 on the Navy F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet tactical fighter. And $476 million would be spent on the Navy-Air Force-Marine Joint Strike Fighter.

Critics have argued, too, that the Navy should have no use for a new class of attack submarines in the post-Soviet era. But the budget calls for spending $1.1 billion for the New Attack Submarine, which is the successor to the Seawolf Attack Submarine.

At a news conference Monday, Defense Secretary William S. Cohen rejected criticism of the Pentagon’s weapons buying.

“They’re not Cold War-era weapons systems,” Cohen said. “I would not call the [Iraqi] aircraft that are flying over Saddam Hussein’s territory in the no-fly zones right now ‘Cold War relics.’ . . . [These are] new-age threats that we’ll have to face with this new technology.”

California companies are clearly among the winners in the budget proposal.

The administration has proposed spending $1.3 billion next year on the national missile defense program. The program, with Boeing Co., as its lead systems integrator, conducts a large part of its research and development work in California.

The Defense Department has proposed adding $178 million to the Army’s Theater High Altitude Area Defense program. Lockheed Martin Missiles and Space, of Sunnyvale, is its principal contractor.

Lockheed Martin and Boeing are developing prototypes for the new Joint Strike Fighter at the Skunk Works research and development center in Palmdale. The military would spend $477 million for the work in fiscal 2000.

And the Pentagon has decided to order 14 more C-17 cargo planes, which are built by Boeing in Long Beach. About $3.6 billion would be spent on that program in fiscal 2000.