Why the flat tax is a nonstarter

Today is April 15th, the dreaded Tax Day, so it’s high time to think about what’s the best tax reform proposal for America.

The purpose of this blogpost is to explain why a flat income tax is no solution to the problem of the complexity of the current tax code.

Sen. Rand Paul has recently released his rehashed budget blueprint from last year which, of course, stands no chance of passing and which this year includes, unlike last year, a flat income tax as a component. Like last year, however, he proposes only 500 bn bucks in annual spending cuts.

He assumes that the economy will somehow miraculously rebound that it will produce the remaining 1 trillion bucks of annual revenue to balance the budget? It’s a fantasy. It won’t happen. Paul is merely repeating and rehashing the rosy budget blueprint that he introduced last year. It would never balance the budget. By contrast, the budget plans of the Republican Study Committee and the Heritage Foundation WOULD balance the budget, albeit in a decade.

His flat tax proposal is a nonstarter and shows why he is not serious about tax reform. The biggest problem with the income tax is not that it is progressive, and not even the fact that it contains many tax loopholes. The biggest problem is that it is an INCOME TAX – a tax that confiscates people’s hard-earned earnings. A tax that punishes productivity and savings instead of incentivizing them. An INCOME TAX always is, and always will be, a huge drag on the economy, whether it is flat or not.

Moreover, a flat income tax will also not solve other big problems with the INCOME TAX – the bloated, oppressive IRS; the intrusive IRS audits; the burden of filling out tax returns every year, and so forth. A flat tax is not a solution at all. It is a mere placebo.

Besides, the flat tax is such a joke that it wouldn’t stay flat for very long. It could be made progressive (i.e. new tax brackets could be added) by the next Congress. It would take only one or two Congresses to undo everything that the flat tax could give us.

Don’t believe me? Recall that the CURRENT abomination of a federal tax code started in 1913 as a flat income tax. Yet, by 1917, it was a progressive income tax whose highest rate was 77% – a rate not even the most fervent advocate of the federal income tax dreamed of in 1913.

The flat tax is not a solution, mere a placebo, and should not even be considered. Sadly, too many flat tax supporters, including Rand Paul, are wedded to their precious flat tax idol, so they are not willing to consider anything else. By far the most difficult aspect of converting people to the cause of real tax reform has been to get them to at least CONSIDER an option other than a federal income tax. Once that is done, however, it’s easy to do the rest of the “convincing” task.

Mitt Romney, for one, is open to a consumption tax, including the FairTax, and has praised many of the FT’s virtue. He is not stuck on stupid on the income tax and would like to move the US away from such taxation. That means that with Romney, half of the convincing is already down. All the work that remains is to convince Romney that the FairTax is the best plan to completely replace the federal income tax.

As my friend John Gaver rightly says, and has posted on the HF’s blog:

“I just posted this to the Heritage Blog and to their Facebook page

—
Let’s see. The current tax abomination began it’s life as a Flat INCOME Tax. So what’s to make us believe that a new Flat INCOME Tax will remain flat beyond the next session of Congress. One look at the names of those in Congress will convince even the most jaded observer that the rate won’t remain flat.One of the primary problems with our current abomination is that, being a tax on INCOME, it drags down the economy, by punishing productivity and savings. Making a tax on INCOME flat, will not make it any less of a drag on the economy or stimulate savings.Yet another serious problem with our current abomination is that it has layer upon layer of hidden taxes, of which most people are not aware. These hidden taxes come in the form of corporate taxes that are embedded in the cost of every new product. This of course drags the economy down even more and amounts to double taxation, since consumers would be buying already taxed products, with after-tax money. Making the Corporate INCOME Tax the same level as the Personal Income Tax will do nothing to eliminate the many layers of hidden taxes, which constitute double-taxation.The whole idea of a Flat INCOME Tax is nothing more or less than a placebo. It will NOT solve any problems, but only mask the existing problems for a little while longer.By contrast, the FairTax will be entirely transparent and will eliminate all double-taxation. It will stimulate the economy, by removing the drag on the economy that ALL INCOME taxes create. But beyond that, it will encourage savings. But above all, unlike INCOME taxes, since it would be entirely transparent, raising the rate of the FairTax would be political suicide.A Flat INCOME Tax of any kind is a non-starter, since flattening the rates would be analogous to re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. The root problems would still exist. The FairTax is the only tax plan being discussed that would actually FIX the problems with our current tax system.

December 16, 2011 at 12:00am“

http://www.facebook.com/groups/FTgrassroots/permalink/310251469009285/

Reply to Buchanan’s insane Blame America First, Blame Georgia Second opinions

President Obama is busy turning the US into the United Socialist States of America and denouncing capitalism and limited government, Iran is racing to acquire a nuclear weapon, and what is Pat Buchanan doing?

He spends his time, and devotes his nationally-published columns these days, to attacking his fellow Republicans and robust foreign policies, while promoting his insane Blame America First opinions which he shares with Ron Paul and his minions.

On December 6th, one day before the 70th anniversary of the unprovoked Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Buchanan completely rewrote history, claiming that the US was solely to blame for the attack, that it provoked Japan to do so with sanctions, and that Japan was merely an aggrieved party driven to this attack by the sanctions.

This complete revision/rewriting of history is in line with Buchanan’s insane Blame America First isolationist ideology, but it’s also a blatant lie.

The US did impose biting sanctions on Japan – but this didn’t happen in a vacuum. The sanctions were the result of Japan’s repeated aggression against, and huge war crimes in, other Asian countries, including (and most notably) China, where the Japanese exterminated at least 10 million people, 4 million more people than the victims of the German-perpetrated Holocaust. Indeed, the entire genocide perpetrated by the Japanese in Asia is now known as the Asian Holocaust, and it has made the Japanese hated throughout Eastern Asia (including in Korea, China, and the Philippines) to this day. But genocide wasn’t the only war crime the Japanese perpetrated. Rape, enslaving hundreds of thousands of women as prostitutes for Japanese soldiers, torture, destruction of property, and forcible deportations were also standard operating procedures for the Japanese military throughout Asia – in Korea, China, Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, etc. And this was ongoing ever since the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931, with other countries falling under Japan’s yoke later. Their war crimes were so huge that after the war, American military tribunals sentenced 925 Japanese war criminals to death.

So American sanctions were fully justified. But Buchanan disagrees and believes that the Japanese were good guys whom the US needlessly antagonized and provoked to attack Pearl Harbor. He blames the attack EXCLUSIVELY on the US. Like Ron Paul, and like the isolationists of the WW2 era, he’s absolutely opposed to any US involvement – military or diplomatic – anywhere abroad, even if other countries are perpetrating aggression and war crimes against other nations. By Buchanan and Paul, as by the isolationists of the WW2 times, that’s perfectly fine – as long as the United States proper is not attacked. And in Buchanan’s case, if the US IS attacked, that’s exclusively America’s fault according to him.

Buchanan’s insane Blame America First ideology was on display again yesterday, on Dec. 8th, when Townhall and HumanEvents published yet another ridiculous screed of his. Titled “Marco Rubio vs. Rand Paul”, it tries to portray conservative hero Marco Rubio (R-FL) as a hyperinterventionist crusader itching for a war with Russia, a George W. Bush on steroids, while praising libertarian Senator Rand Paul (Ron Paul’s son and a 21st century counterpart of Sen. Gerald Nye) as a hero constraining Rubio’s supposed crusades. Writes Buchanan:

“Rubio was pushing to have the U.S. Senate pressure Obama into fast-tracking Georgia into NATO, making Tbilisi an ally the United States would be obligated by treaty to go to war to defend.

Now it is impossible to believe a senator, not a year in office, dreamed this up himself. Some foreign agent of Scheunemann’s ilk had to have had a role in drafting it.

And for whose benefit is Rubio pushing to have his own countrymen committed to fight for a Georgia that, three years ago, started an unprovoked war with Russia? Who cooked up this scheme to involve Americans in future wars in the Caucasus that are none of our business?

The answer is unknown. What is known is the name of the senator who blocked it — Rand Paul, son of Ron Paul, who alone stepped in and objected, defeating Rubio’s effort to get a unanimous vote.

The resolution was pulled. But these people will be back. They are indefatigable when it comes to finding ways to commit the blood of U.S. soldiers to their client regimes and ideological bedfellows.

Back in 2008, however, as Bush was confining himself to protesting the excesses of Russia’s response, his ex-U.N. ambassador was full of righteous rage and ready for military action.

In the London Telegraph, Aug. 15, 2008, John Bolton declared that Russia had conducted an “invasion,” that Georgia had been a “victim of aggression,” that America had “fiddled while Georgia burned,” that we had played the “paper tiger”when faced by the snarling Russian Bear.

As for the European Union, in bringing about a ceasefire, it had achieved results “approaching Neville Chamberlain’s moment in the spotlight at Munich.”

But did not Georgia launch the attack that started the war?

“This confrontation is not about who violated the Marquis of Queensbury’s rule in South Ossetia,” scoffed Bolton. Russia planned this “rape” because brave little Georgia refused to be “Finlandized.”

Restoring America’s credibility, said Bolton, now requires “drawing a clear line for Russia” in the Caucasus and elsewhere.”

First of all, the claim repeated by Buchanan throughout his entire article – and originally produced by Russian KGB propaganda – that Georgia started the war is a blatant lie. Georgia had been trying to restore government rule in two breakaway provinces – South Ossetia and Abkhazia – for years. Russia’s aggression was not limited to taking over these provinces (which now are begging Russia to annex them, thus discrediting the myth they want to be independent states that Buchanan is peddling); it was a full-scale aggression against Georgia which featured a full-scale invasion and Russian troops marching up to Tbilisi, being stopped at the last minute by a ceasefire brokered by Nicolas Sarkozy. It was not a mere reaction to Georgia’s deeds; it was a full-blown aggression planned long in advance. In any case, this was Georgia’s own internal affair. It was none of Russia’s business. There was absolutely NO justification for what Russia did.

Secondly, Buchanan’s claim that Georgia’s security is “none of our business” is both treasonous and a part of the Kremlin’s propaganda. It is also factually wrong. Georgia is the country that hosts the ONLY Asia-Europe pipelines not controlled by the Kremlin. All others, which go through Belarus, Ukraine, and the Baltic Sea, are controlled by Russia (Lukashenko has sold BelTransGaz to Moscow). If the Kremlin is allowed to control Georgia’s pipelines, it will subjugate and “Finlandize” all of Europe; and if that happens, America’s security WILL be adversely affected, as former allies will be turned into Russia’s protectorates. But of course, in Buchanan’s fantasy world, nothing outside America’s borders is a threat to the US.

So Bolton was right: Russia was to blame for the war; Georgia IS an important country; and the West’s response was an act of appeasement. Furthermore, for Buchanan to cynically use the blood of US soldiers for his political purposes is despicable and morally repugnant. No one is talking about involving American troops in a new war. Rubio was merely proposing to extend NATO’s defense guarantee to Georgia. NATO has, to this day, never been attacked by a conventional enemy and has successfully kept the peace in Europe since 1949. Moreover, a CREDIBLE defense umbrella, if it were to be extended to Georgia, would PREVENT war, not cause it. But of course, the brainless Pat Buchanan, as a supporter of massive defense cuts, doesn’t understand that. Reagan’s lesson that “peace through strength” works is completely lost on him.

If that weren’t foolish enough, Buchanan slandered John Bolton and the entire GOP:

“And who is John Bolton?

Newt Gingrich told two groups Wednesday he intends to name Bolton secretary of state.

With Newt appointing as America’s first diplomat an uber-hawk who makes Dick Cheney look like Gandhi, and Mitt Romney’s foreign policy team crawling with neocons primed for war with Iran, a vote for the GOP in 2012 looks more and more like a vote for war.

Like the Bourbons of old, the Republican Party seems to have learned nothing and forgotten nothing.”

This, like the rest of his screed, is not only false, it’s not only garbage, it’s not merely ridiculous, it’s insulting and libellous, and constitutes grounds for the GOP to sue Buchanan for libel.

Buchanan claims that a vote for the GOP will look like a vote for war, invoking Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, and John Bolton as supposed warmongers who want to take America into some ill-advised wars. That is patently false. What these three politicians advocate is a strong national defense and a confident, robust foreign policy of standing with America’s allies, such as Israel and Georgia, and standing up to rogue regimes like Iran and the Putin regime (which denies its citizens the most basic right – the right to vote in free, fair elections). Specifically, on Iran, they advocate tough measures SHORT OF WAR, such as sanctions (incl. sanctioning the Iranian central bank), developing missile defense, cyber attacks, aiding Iranian opposition groups, and putting MORAL PRESSURE on the Iranian regime in order to end Iran’s nuclear program or at least bring about positive regime change in Iran through nonintervention, peaceful means, just like Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher did with the Soviet Union. And as they have shown, it IS possible. They toppled the Soviet Union and won the Cold War without firing a shot.

If Gingrich, Bolton, and Romney try the same methods with Iran, they will likely SUCCEED, and if they do, they will topple the Iranian regime without firing a shot. That’s because peace through strength policies WORK WELL. You don’t solve problems and defeat bullies by being weak, disarming yourself, or isolating yourself from the world. You defeat them by standing up courageously to them. As the Romans said, si vis pacem, para bellum. If you want peace, prepare for war. George Washington agreed, and famously said in 1790 that “to be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of keeping the peace.”

Why have Gingrich, Bolton, and Romney earned Buchanan’s ire and slander, then?

Because they have alluded to the possibility that, if (God forbid) all of these non-war options fail, and Iran is still run by the mullahs and doesn’t reverse course, they are prepared, if elected to the helm of the executive branch, to use military force to stop the Iranian nuclear program. And they are right. The US should exhaust all nonwar options before going to war, and should strive as well as it can to avoid bellum with Iran, but if it becomes impossible, if Iran still continues its nuclear weapons program undaunted, the US SHOULD bomb Iran. That should be the LAST RESORT, but it must be on the table. Eliminating this option would mean saying to Iran it has nothing to fear if it doesn’t comply with Western demands to stop developing nuclear weapons.

That, however, doesn’t mean anything to Buchanan, because he still believes and publicly claims that Iran is NOT developing nuclear weapons (despite tons of evidence that it is), and believes that, in any case, who is the US to say to Iran that it cannot be allowed to have nuclear weapons? (Just like Ron Paul.) According to Buchanan, Iran is not a threat to anyone and it would be perfectly fine if Iran acquired nuclear weapons… Buchanan would start worrying only after an Iranian nuke would hit the US, by which time it would be too late.

Buchanan claims that “Republicans, like the Bourbons of old, have learned nothing and have forgotten nothing.” Actually, the one who has learned nothing is Buchanan. Aged 73, born before WW2, he STILL advocates the same failed isolationist and pacifist policies that led to that disastrous war (as well as to other conflicts) and are responsible for the death of over 3,500 American servicemen on 12/7/1941. He still advocates massive defense cuts, the appeasement of America’s enemies (including Russia and Iran), withdrawal of all American troops from all foreign countries (even strategically important ones), termination of all defense commitments to all of America’s allies (even crucial ones and longtime friends such as Japan and South Korea), retrenching behind oceans, isolating America from the rest of the world, and pretending that anything outside America’s borders is not a threat to the US, even if it’s a nuclear-armed missile in Cuba, North Korea, or Iran. In other words, hiding behind oceans and hoping that the crocodile won’t eat us. That is the foreign policy that Buchanan advocates, as does his ideological ally Ron Paul.

Buchanan has learned nothing throughout the 73 years of his lifetime, not even this crucial lesson about isolationism from Ronald Reagan:

“We in America have learned bitter lessons from two world wars. It is better to be here ready to protect the peace, than to take blind shelter across the sea, rushing to respond only after freedom is lost. We’ve learned that isolationism never was and never will be an acceptable response to tyrannical governments with an expansionist intent.”

I will not even invoke lessons on the subject from President Harry Truman.

So it is Buchanan who, like Bourbons of the Restoration Era (1815-1830), has learned nothing.

http://townhall.com/columnists/patbuchanan/2011/12/09/creators_oped/page/2

Jack Hunter’s new lies about defense spending

Ron Paul’s official blogger (and self-described “humble servant”) Jack Hunter, who has been caught lying about defense and foreign policy issues several times before, has not given up and is still spreading lies.

And, as I expected, even the massive defense cuts which the sequester will make (now that it has been triggered) do not satisfy the opponents of a strong defense. They now falsely claim that these will not be cuts at all, merely reductions of the projected rate of growth of defense spending. That is a blatant lie, because defense spending WILL BE CUT in real terms from FY2011 levels WITH OR WITHOUT THE SEQUESTER.

Here’s Hunter’s newest article.

This entire article, just like most of what Hunter writes, is a litany of blatant lies. I’ll respond to only a part of it:

“I stress the word “perceived,” because when it comes to Pentagon spending, too many Republicans still behave exactly like liberal Democrats.”

 Gibberish. What some, if not many, Republicans recognize is that the DOD is NOT responsible for America’s fiscal woes, constitutes just 17% of the total federal budget, and is tasked with the #1 Constitutional function of the federal government: defending America.

“The truth is that we don’t need to spend as much on defense as we’re spending now.”

That is not “the truth”, that is your opinion, and it’s fallacious. My opinion is that the US is spending about the right amount of money on defense.

“We’re spending more on defense than at any time since World War II”

That is a blatant lie. The US is NOT spending more on defense than at any time since WW2. America’s current defense budget amounts to just 3.5% of GDP (defense’s lowest share of America’s GDP since FY1948, excluding the late Clinton years) and less than 15% of the total federal budget (also the smallest share since the late 1940s, this time even INCLUDING the late Clinton years). In real terms, the current defense budget (for FY2012), $513 bn, is vastly SMALLER than the Reagan-era budgets for FY1987 ($606 bn in today’s money), FY1988 ($570 bn), and FY1989 ($573 bn). Even including spending on Iraq and Afghanistan won’t help you, Mr Hunter: the military’s share of the pie then raises to just 4.6% of GDP and 17% of the total federal budget, exceeding Reagan era levels only in raw dollar terms (and only by $24 bn).

“and almost as much as every other nation combined.”

That is also a blatant lie. According to the SIPRI, the US is responsible only for 42.8% of global military spending, COUNTING spending on Iraq, Afghanistan, and the DOE, even if one accepts understated figures for China and Russia.

“Senator Tom Coburn has suggested that if we are going to start cutting, the Pentagon is the most logical place to start precisely because it is the most wasteful.”

Wrong. The DOD is not the most wasteful government department; the DHHS (which manages entitlement programs and pays $180 bn a year to crooks) is. Moreover, the idea that the Congress should start cutting spending by cutting spending on the government’s #1 Constitutional DUTY is both morally repugnant AND wrong AND against the Constitution.

“But even more importantly, these “devastating” automatic cuts that are supposed to happen aren’t really cuts. As Senator Rand Paul explained on CNN the day the super committee failed:

This may surprise some people, but there will be no cuts in military spending because we’re only cutting proposed increases. If we do nothing, military spending goes up 23% over 10 years. If we [make these cuts], it will still go up 16%.”

The only problem with this claim is that it is a blatant lie. Even WITHOUT the sequester, the defense budget will be cut IN REAL TERMS (not just in terms of spending growth) by $17 bn in FY2012 (from $530 bn in FY2011) and further in every fiscal year afterwards. WITH the sequester, the defense budget will be cut by over 20% – a whopping 20% – IN REAL TERMS. The defense budget will NOT see any spending growth for at least the next decade – WITH OR WITHOUT THE SEQUESTER. Meanwhile, GWOT/OCO spending is scheduled to go down in every FY automatically and zero out in FY2015, as US troops withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan. Proof:

http://armedservices.house.gov/index.cfm/files/serve?File_id=ab5d8376-1144-409f-b7bf-b8f91f66a9fb

Why are Rand Paul and Rush Limbaugh propagating those lies? Paul is a libertarian liar, and Limbaugh is an ignorant radio talk show host. They don’t care about the truth. Yes, El Rushbo, the conservative hero, is in fact an ignorant guy and an abject liar.

“Added Limbaugh:

Defense spending is going up even with sequestration … You understand the current services baseline budgeting, and even you are shocked to realize now that there is no real cut from a baseline of zero in defense spending.“

 Again, that is a blatant lie which has utterly discredited Limbaugh. Defense spending will be cut IN REAL TERMS, WITH OR WITHOUT THE SEQUESTER. With the sequester, defense spending will be cut IN REAL TERMS by over 20%. Proof:

http://armedservices.house.gov/index.cfm/files/serve?File_id=ab5d8376-1144-409f-b7bf-b8f91f66a9fb

“In Graham’s defense, his view on defense spending seems to be the dominant one in the Republican Party today.”

Wrong again. If this was a dominant opinion professed by Republicans, they would not have meekly agreed to the previous 6 rounds of defense cuts nor to the debt ceiling deal which created the sequester in the first place. On Tuesday night’s debate, only two candidates condemned the cuts the sequester will make, while 3 others promised FURTHER cuts ON TOP OF the ones that the sequester will make.

“The problem is there’s simply no way to actually do what every Republican loves to talk about — limiting government, balancing budgets, cutting waste — without reducing defense spending.”

That is also a blatant lie. The budget can be balanced without cutting defense spending. As the Republican Study Committee and the Heritage Foundation have both proven with their budget plans, both of which would balance the budget by FY2020 without any defense cuts. And the claim that limited government can’t exist without defense cuts is also a blatant lie. A strong military and generous funding for it are perfectly consistent with conservative philosophy. They, in fact, irremovable PARTS of conservative philosophy. Conservatism calls for limited government, low taxation, preserving Christian values, and a strong military. None of these parts can be removed from this ideology. You either accept 100% of it or you don’t accept it at all. Furthermore, the Constitution REQUIRES the federal government to provide for a strong defense – although you, as a cafeteria constitutionalist, couldn’t care less about the Constitution.

“After entitlement spending, defense spending is the second largest part of our budget.”

 Technically true, but entitlement spending alone consumes a full 56% of the federal budget, with another 6% being used to pay interest rates on the debt. Military spending amounts to less than 19%.

“You could feasibly gut the entire entitlement system and not touch Pentagon spending, but what politician is going to tell America’s seniors they must do without so Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and God-knows-where-else can have more?”"

 The Libyan War is over, and the Iraqi war will be over by this year’s end. Plus, the sequester will make cuts to the CORE defense budget – which pays for defending AMERICA ITSELF – for the feeding, salarying, equipping, housing, maintaining, and training the military, not for wars of nationbuilding. It will make whopping cuts to the core defense budget. And the idea that defense spending should be cut before entitlements is morally repugnant, wrong, un-conservative, and against the Constitution.

“If my fellow conservatives want to know why the GOP has failed to cut government spending, look at Lindsey Graham. Then take a look at all of the other Republicans who agree with him.”

Go to hell. You have no right to call us conservatives “my fellow conservatives.” You are not one of us. You are not a conservative. You are a leftist, anti-defense libertarian and a Ron Paul cultist. You are not a conservative, have never been, and never will be. You are an utterly discredited libertarian liar. A true conservative SUPPORTS a strong defense and robust funding for it, while being mindful that waste in any government department – especially one tasked with defending America – is inexcusable and needs to be excised. Robust funding for defense is perfectly in line with, and constitutes a part of, conservative ideology. CUTTING defense is a tenet of liberal and libertarian ideologies. Go to dailypaul.com and lewrockwell.com and write your libertarian garbage there. You are not a conservative.

http://dailycaller.com/2011/11/23/why-republicans-cant-cut/

UPDATE: Joseph Lawler of the American Spectator, in an AmSpec blogpost titled “Perspectives on the sequester”, has proven that because the sequester will kick in, defense spending will be cut IN REAL TERMS – not just in raw dollar terms, but also as a percentage of GDP – to historic lows not seen in decades, and that it would have been cut IN REAL TERMS to historic laws even WITHOUT the sequester as a consequence of the debt ceiling deal: http://spectator.org/blog/2011/11/23/perspective-on-the-sequester

Under so-called “baseline budgeting”, military spending would ALSO decline to historic lows. Specifically:

1) Under baseline budgeting, without the debt ceiling deal, military spending would shrink from 4.5% of GDP in FY2011 to 3.0% of GDP in FY2021.

2) Under the terms of the debt ceiling deal but without the sequester, military spending would be cut significantly below the baseline, with the big cuts starting in FY2016 and widening in every successive FY, taking military spending down to 2.75% of GDP (a level not since since the 1930s!) in FY2021.

3) Under the terms of the debt ceiling deal and with the sequester, which was triggered on November 23rd, military spending will be cut significantly below the baseline starting in FY2013, with the cuts widening in every successive fiscal year, shrinking military spending down to 2.5% of GDP – less than what South Korea spends on its military – in FY2021.

The source: the Bipartisan Policy Center, reposted on the American Spectator’s website by Joseph Lawler (http://spectator.org/blog/2011/11/23/perspective-on-the-sequester).