President George W. Bush Feb. 7 sent Congress a $2.57 trillion federal budget request for fiscal year 2006, kicking off an annual debate on arms control, security, and nonproliferation priorities.
The following pages explore the most controversial budget issues: funding for nuclear weapons, missile defense, and threat reduction activities.
The budget reflects some of the fiscal challenges Bush faces as he begins his second term. He is contending with a budget deficit running about $400 billion annually, a potentially expensive Social Security restructuring, and a costly war in Iraq. Bush has proposed cutting or holding steady funding for a raft of government programs.
Yet, most Department of Defense programs were spared, and the Pentagon’s total fiscal year 2006 budget request equals $419 billion, a 4.8 percent increase over current spending of about $400 billion. It marks the fifth straight year of a defense buildup in which Pentagon spending has increased by one-third.
Both the current and projected spending exclude funding for ongoing military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, which the administration has funded and plans to continue funding through supplemental appropriations. Military operation costs in Afghanistan and Iraq are expected to push defense spending for fiscal year 2006 above half a trillion dollars.
To be sure, the Defense Department did scale back some weapons programs, including combat aircraft, advanced nuclear submarines, and a new Navy destroyer employing stealth technology. Missile defense spending was also scaled back by $1 billion after surpassing $10 billion last year. Still, such costs remain considerable: the Missile Defense Agency alone, which commands the lion’s share of the funds, is slated to get almost $8 billion.
On the other hand, lawmakers claim that their pressure convinced the White House to kill Pentagon efforts to trim programs intended to secure and destroy former Soviet stockpiles. Bush requested modest increases for these programs, located in the Departments of Defense, Energy, and State.
The Energy Department’s nonproliferation programs are widely applauded on Capitol Hill. On the other hand, its efforts to research new types of nuclear weapons have drawn widespread congressional opposition, with Congress eliminating or cutting funding for some of these programs last year. Bush’s budget seeks to restore some of these funds.
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