Analyst: Romney plan would boost Pentagon budget by $2 trillion

Presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney would
spend $2 trillion more than the current Pentagon budget over the next decade,
according to an analysis of his proposal to tie the Defense budget to the gross
domestic product.

Travis Sharp, a Center for a New American Security analyst, found Romney’s Defense Department would have a budget that spends $2.1 trillion
more than the current plan over the next 10 years if the Pentagon budget was based on 4 percent of
GDP, as Romney has proposed.

{mosads}In an analysis conducted for CNN
Money, Sharp found that the 2013 budget would jump $100 billion at 4
percent GDP. The current budget is 3.5 percent of GDP.

Romney has criticized President Obama for budget cuts to the
Pentagon, which is planning to reduce its budgets by $487 billion over the next
decade. He’s also blamed Obama for the threat of sequestration, an automatic
cut of $500 billion scheduled to take effect in January 2013.

Romney has called for adding 100,000 troops to the military
and increasing shipbuilding, and he has attacked Obama for shrinking the Navy and Air
Force.

The size of the Pentagon spending plan has become a political issue
this year amid the current budget cut proposal and sequestration. Rep. Paul Ryan
(R-Wis.), a potential vice presidential pick, proposed a
House Republican budget that would reverse sequestration and roll back some of
the proposed $487 billion cut at the expense of deeper cuts to non-defense
discretionary spending.

Democrats have attacked his plan as unfair and
unbalanced, and House Democrats plan to unveil their own sequester
alternative. Ryan’s sequester replacement is moving in the House this
week but is unlikely to get traction in the Senate.

Sharp told CNN Money that the Pentagon could ramp up
spending to Romney’s target, but he also questioned whether it was worth the cost.

“Romney’s plan might reduce military risk in some areas,” he said. “But you can
never eliminate all the risk — no matter how much you spend.”