Fact Check: Bush Downplays Defense Spending as Percentage of US Economy Posted by Adam Blickstein

Bush just stated in his speech that spending on defense as a percentage of the U.S. economy was around 4 percent, and cited that this is historically low as compared to World War Two and Vietnam. That is true, but unfortunately doesn't account for current American spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, funded mainly through the "off-budget" emergency supplementals that hide the true costs. The New York Times earliest this year breaks down this point:

Even considering the military budget and war spending together, however, total U.S. expenditures remain modest compared to historical levels in wartime. Shortly before the Vietnam War, in 1962, defense spending alone tallied 9.3 percent of GDP. During World War II expenditures were higher still; in 1944 the defense budget peaked at 37.8 percent of GDP. Even after recent increases, defense spending today comes to about 3.7 percent of GDP—and the combined total, even after including both war-spending supplements and “Global War on Terror” expenditures, comes to 6.2 percent of GDP. Still, today’s spending represents an increase since before the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, when defense spending tallied roughly 3 percent of GDP.

Bottom line: Spending on defense, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, has doubled in the past 8 years. The President is still insists on hiding the true costs of war...

Comments

[Mike M.]

Uh, also... why are we comparing our defense spending now to World War II? Back then we were in a World War. Now we're not.

[robertdfeinman]

A different view of the federal budget:

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