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Bush Downplays the Defense Dollars

Posted by Matt Ortega on April 10, 2008 at 02:40 PM

Adam Blickstein, blogging at Democracy Arsenal for the National Security Network, commented on the President's speech about defense spending this morning.

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.

According to the New York Times, defense and war spending combined are about 6.2 percent of GDP, more than double spending eight years ago.

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