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Politics : The Trump Presidency -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: zzpat who wrote (68477)

4/26/2018 12:03:29 PM

From: zzpat

Respond to of 358876

I found the numbers adjusted for inflation. Every year under Clinton (military spending) was far higher than under Carter so if we take away the insanity of the Reagan bloated spending the problem is republican spending.

Starting with 1977. C arter, R eagan, B ush, C linton.

C-335.6
337.4
348.1
363.0
R-382.2
414.0
444.7
461.3
493.6
522.4
530.5
533.3
B-538.4
513.6
519.1
485.6
C-464.0
443.4
421.0
400.5
403.1
393.6
392.7
407.7

To: zzpat who wrote (68477)	4/26/2018 12:30:23 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 358876

In 2000, the year of the highest surplus we spent the exact same on the military spending as we did in the last year of Reagan (1988) Which was 12 years earlier, so less in real terms, and much less as a percentage of the federal budget. If the number in the military had staid the same inflation in military weapons cost, combined with increased personnel cost per person (in both nominal and real terms) would have made the military budget noticeably larger in 2000 then in 1988. Without that reduction in force size there would have been a deficit in the year 2000. The rest of your post seems to be trying to counter some argument against the cut back in force size which I didn't make. If one accepts that the cut back in size was a good idea, or even that it was too small, that the military should have shrunk further, it doesn't change the point that the reduction that did happen was a necessary condition for the brief surpluses that occurred.