WTH is Congress Undermining Our National Defense? Mackenzie Eaglen Explains

Congress narrowly averted a government shutdown last week when it
passed a continuing resolution – a stop-gap spending bill that
finances the government for a little over a month. What does this
really mean? It means that we are spending at previous levels of
government while important investment bills for the future are
frozen, hamstringing the federal government in carrying out its
number one job: to provide for the common defense. But the
problem is bigger, and goes back further, than this week. Our
Defense Department is underfunded and spending priorities are
misaligned; multi-year appropriations are wildly out of touch
with real inflation numbers; Congress treats weapons contractor
behemoths like they are a de facto member of the bureaucracy. And
the proverbial icing on the cake? The Pentagon is not only
lagging in relation to prior output, it is lagging behind China.
The investment in military and defense preparedness with our
number one threat should never be inverse, but China is steadily
investing, while the US is stagnating and slipping.


Mackenzie Eaglen is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise
Institute where she works on defense strategy, defense budgets,
and military readiness. She is a member of the board of advisers
of the Alexander Hamilton Society, a member of the steering
committee of the Leadership Council for Women in National
Security, one of the 12-member US Army War College Board of
Visitors, and a member of the Commission on the Future of the
Navy.


Download the transcript here.