The Bush Administration has inherited a military that is short of ammunition, precision-guided munitions, and personnel.  Equipment is often older than the young soldiers operating it and mission capable rates still have not climbed back to their early 1990 levels.

    The Bush Administration is facing a situation similar to the one presented to President Ronald Reagan in 1981.  Under the Carter Administration, cannibalization rates were alarming, soldiers were leaving the service in high numbers and essential modernization of equipment was not taking place.  President Reagan immediately addressed these problems by significantly increasing the defense budget.

    In 1985, President Reagan spent 6.1% of Gross National Product (GNP) on our defense budget - in 2001 only 2.9% of GNP was spent on defense.  President Reagan wanted to win the war against communism and believed in the adage "Peace Through Strength" - it was successful in our fight against communism and it must be employed again to win our war against terrorism.
 

    The needs of the military have been well documented through hearings held by the House Armed Services Committee and material provided by the Services:

Additional modernization funds are needed

    "CBO estimates that DoD would need to spend about $90 billion a year to maintain            steady rate procurement funding for today's force structure."

    The average age of Army helicopters is 17.6 years, B-52s 38.8 years, Navy aircraft 17.5 years.

Additional ammunition / PGM funds are needed
    The Army ammunition shortfall of $3.3 billion in FY01 has grown.

    The Air Force has only 20% of its current war requirement of Conventionally Air Launched Cruise Missiles (CALCM) and, according to CNO Vern Clark, the Navy's current inventory of Tomahawk missiles "will likely continue to be below what is needed to execute the new strategy."

Additional readiness funds are needed
    Mission capable rates for Navy & Air Force aircraft have declined significantly over the years.   Navy mission capable rates have declined from 71% in 1994 to 67% in 2001.  The Air Force's F-16's mission capable rate has declined from 83% in FY92 to 76% in FY02 and the F-15E's mission capable rate has dropped from 87% to 77%.

    Since FY96 the readiness bath tub for Navy Carrier Air Wings has grown progressively deeper.

Additional personnel funding is needed
    The Air Force has recently announced it needs more than 10,000 additional airmen to handle current operations.

    One of the first actions taken by President Reagan in 1981, was to rebuild the military and the morale of its servicemen and women by eliminating the pay gap.  Currently, a 11.1% pay gap exists and will require an average of $10 billion annually to close.
 
 

    In a speech to the America people in 1983, President Reagan articulated very clearly the need to rebuild America's military.  Twenty years later these words are hauntingly familiar to the problems the Bush Administration has inherited.

    "When I took office in January 1981, I was appalled by what I found: American planes that couldn't fly and American ships that couldn't sail for lack of spare parts and trained personnel and insufficient fuel and ammunition for essential training . . . it was obvious that we had to begin a major modernization program to ensure we could deter aggression and preserve the peace in the years ahead . . . we had to move immediately to improve the basic readiness and staying power of our conventional forces, so they could meet–and therefore help deter–a crisis.  We had to make up for lost years of investment by moving forward with a long-term plan to prepare our forces to counter the military capabilities our adversaries were developing for the future."

    Under the Clinton Administration, U.S. military force structure has been drastically reduced.