Pentagon's Inflation-Estimate Windfall May Add Up to $50 Billion, Aspin Says
WASHINGTON -- Rep. Les Aspin (D., Wis.) estimates that the Pentagon has reaped a windfall possibly totaling as much as $50 billion as a result of excessive inflation projections built into the defense budget since 1982.</br></br>Rep. Aspin, in releasing the latest estimate of this windfall, didn't accuse the Defense Department of wrongdoing. But the lawmaker, who is chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said weeks of investigation by his staff haven't shed much light on what has become of the money.</br></br>The Pentagon has acknowledged it doesn't have any systematic plan for making adjustments when inflation projections turn out to have been too high.</br></br>In a letter to Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, Rep. Aspin begins, "Dear Cap: I've got a problem." He asks for help in resolving the question, "Where are the funds that comprise the inflation dividend of recent years?" Mr. Aspin says, in a floor speech slated for delivery today, that Congress should devise a system for making year-to-year adjustments in the Pentagon budget when more money than necessary has been appropriated to offset cost increases.</br></br>In a statement issued over the weekend in response to Rep. Aspin's statement, Deputy Defense Secretary William Taft said: "The president's economic policy has reduced inflation more than Congress expected, and the department has managed its programs more effectively than in the past." He said that "behind the innuendo and insinuation in Rep. Aspin's press release lies a record of remarkable administrative achievement."