Emails, Todd Harrison, senior fellow, Defense Budget Studies, Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, May 7, 2015

From: Selby, Gardner (CMG-Austin) [mailto:wgselby@statesman.com]
Sent: Thursday, May 7, 2015 2:36 PM
To: Todd Harrison
Subject: RE: Texas reporter

Sen. Cruz said $500 b is roughly the budget of our entire military. Does that help? I guess I am asking what you consider the 2014 budget of our entire military (whatever figure would have been known by July 2014).

His campaign offered as the basis:

According to the CBO, "The Department of Defense's (DoD's) base budget grew from $384 billion to $502 billion between fiscal years 2000 and 2014 in inflation-adjusted (real) terms”.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/08/28/defense-spending-in-the-u-s-in-four-charts/

??

g.

From: Todd Harrison

Sent: Thursday, May 07, 2015 1:56 PM

To: Selby, Gardner (CMG-Austin)

Subject: RE: Texas reporter

Hum…that’s my chart the Washington Post is using, didn’t see that until now!

So he is correct that the base DoD budget for FY2014 was $496B.  But this does not include the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan ($85.2B) or other “mandatory” funding for DoD ($14.3B).  So the total DoD budget for FY14 was actually $596B.

But that is just DoD.  It does not include other military-related costs funded outside of the DoD budget, such as:

$18.4B for nuclear weapons and other related costs, primarily through the Department of Energy

$8.2B in defense-related costs funded through other agencies (such as FBI support to DoD for bomb forensics, etc.)

$77B in annual payments to cover the unfunded liability in military retirement and healthcare pension funds

$166B for veterans benefits and services (primarily through the VA)

If you add in all of these other costs that support the military, the total comes to $866B in FY14.

Todd

From: Selby, Gardner (CMG-Austin)

Sent: Thursday, May 7, 2015 3:15 PM

To: Todd Harrison

Subject: RE: Texas reporter

What’s the best way to describe the base budget? It seems to leave out quite a bit…

G,.

2:20 p.m.

May 7, 2015

The base DoD budget is the peacetime cost of maintaining a standing military.  It does not include the cost of using the military to fight a conflict, nor does it include legacy costs, such as unfunded pensions and veterans benefits, or military activities conducted outside of DoD, such as the maintenance and upgrade of nuclear weapons.  All of those things are extra.