Defensible Defense Budgeting

A lot of talk recently about Obama and Gates "cutting" the defense budget. They aren't, of course. Their budget calls for an increase in defense spending, but not as much as the military requested. If I ask for a 10% raise and receive 5%, can I say I took a pay cut?

The more important question is, so what if it didn't rise? What if we cut it? If we cut it in half, we'd still be spending more than the other five countries on the chart below together. As it stands today, half of all defense spending in the world is spent by the U.S.



Via Matt Yglesias.