Total spending & military wages, both inflation-adjusted, via Sullyblog:
It seems there is room for cutting here.
… And here’s Sully’s “chart of the year”:
Looks like nine planets circling the big blue sun. Note the bar chart on the right: *combined,* the rest of the top 10 spends under $500B.
I am a little tired of defense spending’s going unquestioned, while people rant about Medicaid spending and raising the Social Security age. God help the Pentagon if it ever has to justify its spending like how other entitlement programs (entitlements for entities other than the defense industry) do.
I think we are spending more on advanced weapons systems, but there is a world of room for cutting. We don’t need to have troops stationed all over the world and we need to declare victory in Afghanistan and come home.
The Colonel is quite right. Let’s start with the 51,000 troops in Japan and 48,000 in Germany. I’ve been told by friends in the military that these two countries are gateways for troops to be deployed to other areas of the world. Well, it’s time to close the gates.
Producing and adding weapons to the military’s cache is just another entitlement program.
Here’s another chart, comparing defense to non-defense spending. If we need to “starve the beast” then defense procurement seems the place to start. Link: http://research.stlouisfed.org/fredgraph.png?g=efi