Benefits vs. Weapons

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter stepped into a minefield last month, openly discussing the "tension that we have in the defense budget" between entitlement spending and military modernization.

The Air Force's F/A-22 Raptor fighter is one of several big-ticket weapons systems

So do military benefits. In recent years, the Pentagon has increased family separation pay, medical pay and health care benefits for members of the National Guard and Reserve. The Defense Department's $419.3 billion budget request for fiscal 2006 and its $82 billion fiscal 2005 supplemental request continue the trend.

Hunter, a vocal proponent of increased investment in military weapons and technologies, said the Pentagon must strike the right balance between entitlement spending and modernization. "We have to balance this requirement," he says, adding that the military should strive to give the best of both worlds to its personnel, providing benefits to troops as well as cutting-edge technologies.