Outlook for U.S. Defense Spending

The program focused on future United States defense spending. Robert Hale, the director of the national security division of the Congressional Budget Office worked to assess such budget issues as the proposed post-Cold War scale down and the cost and liability of high technology weapons systems. Before coming to the Congressional Budget Office fifteen years ago, Robert Hale was employed at the Center for Naval Analysis, where he focused on navy procurement issues. James Kenworthy described the purpose of his organization and the need to understand the economic decisions made for defense programs. Mr. Hale continued by speaking about the two debates going on in Congress about defense, including the total number of dollars that Congress makes available to the Defense Department and the allocation of those dollars to specific programs. close