Military spending, in historical perspective

I came across usgovernmentspending.com that allows you to generate historical charts of government expenditures. (You can view the data in actual dollars or inflation-adjusted dollars or percentage of GDP by changing the units.)

Here is a graph of military spending using inflation-adjusted dollars (and a link to it and the underlying data):


I went looking for the data because a Facebook friend of a friend claimed that the drop in military spending as a percentage of GDP during Clinton's administration was the cause of 9/11. Ew boy. For starters, it should be obvious that our external threats are what they are regardless of GDP, so I don't get why you'd look to percent-of-GDP data to make the case that the spending was insufficient (or sufficient) to keep the country safe from attack. Further, military spending at the end of Clinton's term was still historically plenty high. Does anyone writing here believe that the drop in military spending under Clinton allowed 9/11 to happen or caused 9/11? I hope not.

Setting all that aside, I have to say that as I looked at this chart I was amazed at the extreme increase in military spending since 2001 relative to historical levels. I'm curious to know whether those who believe the Iraq war was a good idea also feel that the benefit you see is commensurate with these costs. In other words, was our takeover of Iraq as important as our role in WWII? Was it far more important than the Cold War?

Re: Truth in Budgeting

I never got too excited about it (accounting for the war in the budget) one way or the other since war expenditures are necessarily a series of one-time expenses except for items like payroll and fixed costs (and continuing expense that occur during peacetime). But, I can certainly agree that things are simplified if all eggs are counted in one basket.

It will be interesting to see how the following things get accounted for:

TARPS I and II,

MOAB (mother of all bailouts),

Regular budget,

This recent save the homeowners’ mess, and

What’s the other thing? I’m missing one—oh, Detroit.

If I understand correctly, TARPS I and II can probably be off budget as extraordinary, one-time expenses, ok, two-time expenses. Likewise Detroit…once we all come to terms that GM and Chrysler need to be put out of our misery and stop kicking the bankruptcy can down the road. Also, if we’re now done with the foreclosures and underwater homes (I missed that memo by the way, I thought the term was upside-down), that, too, can be off budget.

The budget is the budget, not much we can do about that and I guess the war costs will show up there now since we’ll be cutting all those things cold war things we don’t need.

I think that MOAB will be more problematic. It appears—and no, I haven’t read it—that a lot of this stuff may be ongoing budget issues…like what the caterwauling on the right is calling “the end of welfare reform.” Whether that is what it is or not, it does seem to obligate federal tax dollars to the states on an ongoing basis.

My head hurts.

[Update: I guess I have to revisit TARP I and the first half of the budget for this fiscal year since they were passed under Pres. Bush. I'll go ahead and ascribe TARP II to President Obama since Bush punted.]