Declining Defense -- A Commentary

Photo from AP

From Wall Street Journal:

For all of his lavish new spending plans, President Obama is making one major exception: defense. His fiscal 2010 budget telegraphs that Pentagon spending is going to be under pressure in the years going forward.

The White House proposes to spend $533.7 billion on the Pentagon, a 4% increase over 2009. Include spending on Iraq and Afghanistan, which would be another $130 billion (or a total of $664 billion), and overall defense spending would be around 4.2% of GDP, the same as 2007.

Read more ....

My Comment: There has been a series of articles and commentaries on the U.S. Defense budget since it was released last week. I expect changes because Congress and their interest groups will put their hand into the process, and will change the numbers. Sooo.... the final number will be different, and will probably be higher than what has been proposed.

My opinion is still open on this issue. In the next day or two I will be reading the budget itself, and I have slotted a comprehensive review of the U.S. military budget for a Wednesday post. In the meantime, the above WSJ editorial is a good read.