Guest Blogger Lt Col Todd Copeland: Missions Won’t Change; Budgets Shouldn’t Either

Todd Copeland / February 09, 2011

After years of deficit spending and overreaching promises made by Congress, the time has come to pay the piper. As Congress searches for areas to reduce the burgeoning national budget, there are those who clamor for cuts to defense, the largest slice of the discretionary spending pie.  While inefficiencies certainly exist in the Department of Defense which should be trimmed, let’s examine just how the DoD budget stacks up against the rest of the nation’s spending before we decide to close a ring of the Pentagon.

The current defense budget is roughly 4.9% of GDP, the lowest ever during a time of war and below the 45-year historical average of 5.3%.  Meanwhile “mandatory” spending has increased five times faster than discretionary spending since 1965 and is projected to continue to increase at alarming rates due to the automatic increases built into the entitlement system. (more…)