Yesterday, another guy utterly discredited himself by making false statements about military spending: Greg Richards. Unfortunately, AT (whose standards have declined since 2003) published his article.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/04/where_the_budget_deficit_actua_1.html
In the article, titled “Where did the budget deficit come from?”, Richards blames 14% of the annual federal budget deficit on “defense spending”, and claimed that it amounts to $800 bn. This figure is false.
Richards is totally wrong about defense spending. Firstly, he doesn’t distinguish it from GWOT spending and therefore classifies all military spending as “defense spending”, which is incorrect. GWOT spending has nothing to do with America’s defense (i.e. with the task of creating and maintaining a strong military); it’s used exclusively to finance the Afghan war and Operation New Dawn (i.e. the withdrawal from Iraq). Secondly, he grossly overstates total military spending. America has never had a $800 bn military budget. Not this FY. Not in FY2010. Not ever.
The correct figures are:
FY2008: a $481.4 bn core defense budget + a $141.7 bn GWOT supplemental = $623.1 bn. [1]
FY2010: a $534 bn core defense budget + a $130 bn GWOT supplemental = $664 bn. [2]
FY2011: a $513 bn (formerly $525 bn) core defense budget + a $160 bn GWOT supplemental = $673 bn. [3]
FY2012: a $553 bn REQUESTED core defense budget + a $118 bn REQUESTED GWOT supplemental = $671 bn. [4]
The sources:
[1] http://www.defense.gov/releases/release.aspx?releaseid=10476;
[2] http://www.defense.gov/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=1341;
[3] http://boehner.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=235338;
[4] http://www.defense.gov/releases/release.aspx?releaseid=14263
