President Biden salutes 171st Air Refueling Wing Mission Support Group Commander Col. Frank Shoaf, left, and Maj. Chris Bowser, Installation Deployment Officer, right, at the 171st Air Refueling Wing, April 17, 2024. (U.S. Air National Guard Photo by Senior Master Sgt. Shawn Monk)
As President Joe Biden prepares to step off the world’s stage, he has a unique opportunity to do four things that will benefit his legacy while at the same time sending a message to America’s adversaries that our best days are still in front of us.
With the passion of the election at full throttle, these tasks need to be accomplished in the lame duck period between election day and the winter break. However, much of the groundwork can and needs to be done beforehand.
First, the president needs to take care of our junior enlisted service members and assist our military in the battle for recruiting talent to man the force. Over the past four years, the military has struggled to recruit, dramatically impacting readiness. Additionally, the impact of inflation has disproportionately impacted those junior enlisted, the lowest paid members of the armed forces. .
To do this, Biden should publicly support, and advocate with Congress for, the House Armed Services Committee proposal to raise junior enlisted pay by about 19 percent. Currently, his administration “strongly opposes” this, almost surely due to the price tag and concerns from at OMB or the Pentagon. The President can and should overrule those who work for him, and support the pay raise in order to treat our military members correctly.
Second, the Pentagon needs to be funded for fiscal 2025, through its annual appropriation. The president made a deal with House Republicans last year in the Fiscal Responsibility Act to limit defense spending in FY25 to a 1 percent increase. This is below the current inflation rate and with ongoing wars, sends exactly the wrong message to our adversaries.
It’s time for Biden to publicly support and advocate for Congress to pass the FY25 defense appropriation at the funding levels proposed by the Senate Armed Services Committee, which is about $38B, or 4.4 percent above what the president requested. It is likely that his political staff will advise him to hold out for a similar increase for domestic programs, especially in an election year that is shaping up to be all about domestic issues. But the benefit of being an outgoing president is not being beholden to politics, and Biden would send a strong signal to our adversaries by advocating for more defense regardless of domestic spending.
Third, the lame duck period after the election might be the only time to proverbially “put the band back together” one more time to pass another $100B emergency war supplemental to support both Ukraine and Israel. This six-to-eight week lame duck period will have the same key congressional leaders that passed the last war supplemental several months ago; More importantly, reloading our depleting munitions stockpile will send a clear message to Russia and Iran that the US in this for the long term, and perhaps get them to back down sooner.
Lastly, and maybe most importantly, is the debt ceiling. This debate will come back to life in January, though, with extraordinary measures, the crisis will not become serious for several months. As his last grand gesture to the American public and the international community at-large, Biden should seek to postpone this debate by another year, giving the next president and Congress time to hammer out a compromise. This may be the most difficult task of the four, but sometimes bundling controversial issues together makes it an easier task.
Again, it’s an election year, and domestic issues are naturally at the forefront. But the president is first and foremost the Commander-in-Chief and the leader of the free world. This week, Biden passed the torch within his political party and is preparing to step off the world’s stage. However, until January 2025, he remains the only person in the world that can bend the arc of global security. These four steps, while politically fraught, will send a clear and compelling message and leave a lasting legacy.
Retired US Army Maj. Gen. John G. Ferrari is a senior nonresident fellow at AEI. Ferrari previously served as a director of program analysis and evaluation for the service.
