The Center for Public Integrity

The talk of the defense world is the budget — specifically, how to shrink it and what will be cut, due to Congressional wrangling or the looming “sequestration”. Given the new austerity pressures, it’s noteworthy that a costly program targeted for cancellation by both the administration and the Congress has gotten a new government check for a quarter of a billion dollars — and, if the Pentagon gets its wish, will get another $400 million soon.

But that’s what happened with the Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS), a putative replacement for the Patriot missile defense system. It has been plagued with so many cost overruns and delays that DoD and Congress both agreed last year to pull the plug — although conflict remains over the timetable.

The Pentagon decided to keep paying until the program attained a “proof of concept,” a status that falls well short of production and deployment but would in theory allow the U.S. or its foreign partners to restart the project later if they chose. DoD requested a total of $804 million over 2012 and 2013. But Congress disagreed, and agreed to fund only the first year.

This study was fielded over the internet from April 13th - 19th with 665 American adults selected as a representative sample of the American public. They are part of a nationwide panel of Knowledge Networks, a company started by two Stanford professors.The Program for Public Consultation, affiliated with the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy, conducted the survey.

The panelists were recruited through a scientific process of selection using two methods: a random selection of possible US telephone numbers (also called random digit dial sampling, or RDD); and a random selection of residential addresses using the United States Postal Service's Delivery Sequence File (a complete list of all U.S. residential households — including households that have only cell phones, and are often missed in random-digit-dial  sampling).

Persons were then invited by telephone or by mail to participate in something called the KnowledgePanel. Those who agree to participate but do not have Internet access were provided a laptop computer and Internet service. A representative sample is then chosen from all the panelists for a specific survey. Once that sample completes a survey the demographic breakdown of the sample is compared to the US census. Any variations from the census are adjusted by weighting.

Conducting surveys with this type of representative sample on line has proven superior to standard telephone surveys, because it is drawn from a pool that is more complete demographically. Also respondents can take as much time as they like to read and respond to questions, thus increasing the thoughtfulness of their answers. This method has increasingly become the preferred method for academic and government-sponsored surveys.

The military has long prided itself on the medical and other benefits it supplies members, both active duty and retired. They have been a major selling point for the all-volunteer force. But with new budget austerity pressures, the military has been forced to consider cutting these benefits.

The public has mixed feelings on this, according to the results of an innovative, new, nationwide survey developed by three nonprofit groups, including the Program for Public Consultation, the Center for Public Integrity and the Stimson Center.

Military personnel costs have nearly doubled since the start of fiscal year 2001, according to calculations by Lawrence J. Korb, a Senior Fellow with the Center for American Progress and a former assistant secretary of defense under President Reagan. If the costs are not controlled, Korb says, they will eat away at the military’s budget, forcing vital training and modernization programs to the side.

Dealing with this issue was a challenge for Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who opposed expanding TRICARE to National Guard members in 2003 and in 2006 pushed for raised fees similar to what the Obama administration has called for in its latest budget. The problem also haunted Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who said of the problem in 2010 “Everybody knows that we’re being eaten alive by health care.”

While politicians, insiders and experts may be divided over how much the government should spend on the nation’s defense, there’s a surprising consensus among the public about what should be done: They want to cut spending far more deeply than either the Obama administration or the Republicans.

That’s according to the results of an innovative, new, nationwide survey by three nonprofit groups, the Center for Public integrity, the Program for Public Consultation and the Stimson Center. Not only does the public want deep cuts, it wants those cuts to encompass spending in virtually every military domain — air power, sea power, ground forces, nuclear weapons, and missile defenses.

According to the survey, in which respondents were told about the size of the budget as well as shown expert arguments for and against spending cuts, two-thirds of Republicans and nine in 10 Democrats supported making immediate cuts — a position at odds with the leaderships of both political parties.

The average total cut was around $103 billion, a substantial portion of the current $562 billion base defense budget, while the majority supported cutting it at least $83 billion. These amounts both exceed a threatened cut of $55 billion at the end of this year under so-called “sequestration” legislation passed in 2011, which Pentagon officials and lawmakers alike have claimed would be devastating.

How close are congressional lawmakers to pursuing what Americans want in a defense budget? Is the Obama administration closer, or farther away, than Republicans?

Three nonprofit organizations — the Program for Public Consultation (PPC),* the Stimson Center, and the Center for Public Integrity — collaborated on a unique survey meant to answer these questions. The results of this innovative survey are set to be disclosed on Thursday morning, May 10. You can tune in to this website at 10 am EST, when a summary of the results will be posted, as well as the full survey, all the answers, and some graphic depictions of public attitudes. Or you can attend a press conference being held by all three organizations to discuss the results (details below).

As a third option, you can join us for a live Web discussion at 2:00pm EST, where you’ll be able to chat with Steven Kull of the Program for Public Consultation, Matthew Leatherman of the Stimson Center and R. Jeffrey Smith of the the Center for Public Integrity. Just enter your email address in the CoverItLive box on this page to get a reminder before the chat starts. We'll be taking questions live, but if you already have something you'd like us to talk about, feel free to email Cole Goins: cgoins [at] public integrity [dot] org, or leave it in the comments below.

We can’t tell you all the results just yet. But we can say with confidence that what Washington is doing is not what the American people say they want. This may or may not surprise you. But if you come back here tomorrow, you’ll find out what your neighbors, friends, and colleagues — on average — think about national security spending, and you’ll learn precisely all the ways that Washington has gotten off-track in this debate.

Senators Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) want more information from Defense Secretary Leon Panetta about an inspector general's report criticizing the Pentagon's treatment of whistleblowers — a report first disclosed by the Center and the Project on Government Oversight.

Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and McCain, the panel's ranking member, made their feelings known Tuesday in a letter to Panetta.

"Last Sunday, the Washington Post reported on an 'internal Pentagon report' finding that the Department of Defense Inspector General unit responsible for protecting military whistleblowers had failed to do its job," wrote the Senators, referring to the Center story that was reprinted in the Post. "According to the article, the May 2011 report found 'persistent sloppiness and a systematic disregard for Pentagon rules meant to protect those who report fraud, abuses, and the waste of taxpayer funds.'

"We understand that this report was initiated and conducted by the Inspector General, and that the Inspector General has made a number of changes in an effort to address the problems identified in the report," the letter concludes. "Nonetheless, the systematic failure of the Department to protect military whistleblowers from reprisal is a matter of grave concern. Accordingly, we ask that you provide us with a copy of the report and advise us of the actions that have been taken and will be taken to address the problems identified in the report - including steps to re-open any reprisal cases that were inadequately investigated or erroneously dismissed."

How would the American public shape the Pentagon's budget? Find out this Thursday, May 10, at 2pm EST as we discuss the findings of our new survey with the Program for Public Consultation and the Stimson Center gauging citizens' priorities for military spending.

Joining the live chat: Steven Kull, director of the Program for Public Consultation; Matthew Leatherman, analyst for Stimson Center's Budgeting for Foreign Affairs and Defense project; and R. Jeffrey Smith, managing editor for national security at the Center for Public Integrity.

Enter your email below to get a reminder for the event. We'll be taking questions live, but if you already have something you'd like us to talk about, feel free to email Cole Goins: cgoins [at] public integrity [dot] org, or leave it in the comments below.

The Defense Department has inadequately protected from reprisals whistleblowers who have reported wrongdoing, according to an internal Pentagon report, and critics are calling for action to be taken against those who have been negligent.

The report, dated May 2011, accuses the officials, who work in the Defense Department’s Office of Inspector General, of persistent sloppiness and a systematic disregard for Pentagon rules meant to protect those who report fraud, abuses, and the waste of taxpayer funds, according to a previously-undisclosed copy. The report was obtained by the Project on Government Oversight, a nonprofit watchdog group.

A three-person team of veteran investigators at the Pentagon, assigned to review the performance of the “Directorate of Military Reprisal Investigations,” concluded in the report that in 2010 the directorate repeatedly turned aside evidence of serious punishments inflicted on those who had complained.

The actions included threatened or actual discharges, demotions, firings, prosecutions, and even a mental health referral. At least one of the alleged reprisals was taken because the complainer had written to Congress, an act that Pentagon regulations say is a “protected communication” immune from retaliation. Some of the other whistleblowers had alleged discrimination, travel violations, and “criminality,” the report states.

In all, the team disputed the directorate’s dismissal of more than half of the 156 whistleblowing cases it reviewed, and called for the directorate to revamp its procedures and start enforcing the protective rules.