Let’s Unfreeze Our Military Spending

Conn Carroll / January 26, 2010

According to multiple reports, President Barack Obama will announce a “spending freeze” in his State of the Union tomorrow night. While we definitely have our doubts about the efficacy and reality of these proposed cuts, what there is no doubt about is that President Obama’s past Defense budget was entirely inadequate to protect our nation.

The Congressional Budget Office correctly notes that total inflation adjusted Defense spending “exceeds the peak of about $500 billion (in 2010 dollars) during the height of the Reagan Administration’s military buildup in the mid-1980s.” However, our economy is a lot larger today than it was then. In GDP terms we are actually spending a lot less on defense than we were in the 80s.

In a Stimson Center guest blog last week, Heritage fellow Mackenzie Eaglen explained why Obama’s nominal defense increases actually fall far short of what is needed to protect our nation: (more…)