July 13, 2018
"to elevate the condition of men--to lift artificial weights from all shoulders, to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all, to afford all an unfettered start and a fair chance, in the race of life." --Abraham Lincoln
Chairman's Note: Sharing the Defense Burden
President Trump may have offended some of our allies this week when he delivered a stern message reminding them of their unmet defense spending promises, but it was not a message they haven’t head before.
"If we’ve got collective defense,” then-President Obama said at a 2014 NATO press conference in Brussels, “it means that everybody’s got to chip in, and I have had some concerns about a diminished level of defense spending among some of our partners in NATO. Not all, but many.”
President Obama’s concern for low levels of European defense spending is well founded.
When NATO was established in 1948, the U.S. was concerned that many European democracies were too militarily weak to protect themselves from U.S.S.R. encroachment. An alliance against a common enemy seemed the best option for defense while allowing European economies and militaries to rebuild after World War II. The U.S. may not have been immediately threatened with invasion of the homeland but we saw an opportunity to hedge Soviet expansion.
The alliance has been spectacularly successful, but the world has changed a lot over the past 70 years. Europe has been rebuilt. NATO has added allies. The U.S.S.R. fell, global terrorism burgeoned as an imminent threat, and Russia, while again a threat, learned new tricks.
What hasn’t changed is the U.S. continuing to bear the greatest brunt of NATO’s financial burden.
At present, only 5 out of 28 NATO countries meet the 2 percent of GDP defense spending level that they all agreed to 4 years ago. By contrast, the U.S.’s defense spending sits around 3.5 percent of GDP.
This is simply not acceptable. Alliances are built on trust. And our trust is undermined when our allies fail to meet their defense spending promises.
We need a better picture of what our allies defensive capabilities really are. That is why I introduced the Allied Burden Sharing Report Act of 2018 this week.
While the percentage of GDP spent on defense is a relatively easy metric to find, and it does help us get a sense of a country’s military readiness, it is an imperfect measure. What is less readily available is what our allies are spending that defense money on. Is it going to tanks and planes, or military pensions?
This bill seeks to remedy that by requiring the Department of Defense to resume compiling and submitting an extensive report that includes the common defense contributions of NATO countries and our other allies.
A report of this kind was originally ordered in the 1985 National Defense Authorization Act, and continued in some form until 2004, when Pentagon officials decided to shift their focus to our allies’ contributions to the Global War on Terror. However, as the geopolitical climate has once against shifted, it is time to pass this bill and bring back the report.
If we are to continue entering into and maintaining alliances to protect others from near-peer countries like Russia and China, it is essential we have a global, holistic view of our allies’ contributions.
Issue in Focus: The Transportation Empowerment Act
Americans are increasingly divided on many issues, but federal funding for interstate highways isn’t one of them.
The American people broadly support federal spending to maintain the interstate highway system and the federal gas tax has been a reasonable, but not perfect, way to pay for it.
Unfortunately, decades ago politicians in Washington began using the once flush Highway Trust Fund to fund their own non-highway transportation pet projects.
In 1983, for example, Congress created a mass transit account within the Highway Trust Fund that was funded by simply stealing gas tax dollars from the HTF.
Today roughly 25 percent of your gas tax dollars are diverted in a similar fashion to bike paths, buses, light rail, streetcars, and vegetation management.
No wonder the system is broke.
For more than 10 years, Congress has transferred or authorized more than $144 billion from the general fund to bailout the HTF. Absent any changes, the CBO estimates that the HTF will still face a cumulative shortfall of $161 billion by 2028.
The status quo is not sustainable. And that is why I have introduced the Transportation Empowerment Act with Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Ted Cruz (R-TX).
Under our bill, the federal gasoline tax would gradually be lowered from 18.3 cents per gallon to 3.7 cents per gallon over the next five years, leaving Washington with sufficient funds to maintain the current interstate highway system. It also would give states a more equitable share of federal gas-tax revenue as block grants. States would then be free to set their own gas tax levels and fund their own transportation projects.
By cutting out the federal middleman, we can protect these funds from greedy politicians and special interests taking their cut before sending them back to the states with strings and burdensome regulations attached. And we can lessen the influence of distant bureaucrats in Washington who waste the money on inefficient and non-highway projects.
Instead, states and cities could plan, finance, and build better-designed and more affordable projects. All 50 states would be empowered to meet their diverse transportation needs.
Some communities could build more roads, while others could repair old ones. Some might build highways, others light rail. All would be free to experiment with innovative green technologies, and could find new ways to finance their projects.
In our 21st Century Economy, we need a 21st Century transportation system. And the best way to do this is to allow state and local governments to customize their transportation policies to meet their unique needs and values. The Transportation Empowerment Act is a step in that direction.
