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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Cogito who wrote (48173)	2/6/2008 3:13:38 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541303

The fact that it was a much larger part of our economy and of our federal budget in the past doesn't justify (or argue against) current levels. But it does show that there has been a strong trend downwards and that today's military spending is more affordable, and less problematic (at least in a fiscal sense) than past spending. A counter argument might be that in the cold war the spending was more justified because the threat was larger, and often more active. (Al Qaeda in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Taleban, and other forces we are fighting are not the Chinese army at Chosen). I agree with that point, which is why a reduction in the size of our military and the effort we put in to funding it was reasonable. But I think its important to note that there has been such a very large decrease. A lot of people seem to think that military spending is a growing part of our budget and crowding out other spending, or that the main reason for our deficits over the years is increases in military spending. Neither of those ideas is accurate.