Two Big Errors Plague Budget Reporting

By any normal measure, it's not a cut. Yes, less money is being budgeted for the Iraq war than we're currently spending. But the base military budget-where that $78 billion will come from-is four times larger than the war budget, and is still growing. Let's agree on a definition: a cu...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Foreign policy in focus 2011-02, p.N_A
Main Author: Pemberton, Miriam
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Budget deficits
Defense spending
Federal funding
Government
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:By any normal measure, it's not a cut. Yes, less money is being budgeted for the Iraq war than we're currently spending. But the base military budget-where that $78 billion will come from-is four times larger than the war budget, and is still growing. Let's agree on a definition: a cut means budgeting less money for next year than we are spending this year. But the proposed figure of $553 billion to be spent on the base budget in 2012 is in fact 5 percent higher than was budgeted for 2011. Higher, that is, in real terms than any budget of the Bush administration, or indeed any budget since World War II.
ISSN:1524-1939