RSSWar Related Appropriations for Defense vs. Yearly Budget Deficits (2002-2008)
Estimates by the Congressional Budget Office place total funding for operations of the Iraq and Afghanistan War on Terrorism at $651 billion as of December 2007. This amount includes $87 billion of the $188 billion requested by the President for 2008. If Congress approves the remaining $101 billion for 2008, this will bring the seven-year total for the war to $752 billion. As can be seen from the chart, while these numbers have contributed to the deficits for the past seven years (just like all other forms of spending have contributed to the deficits), they were clearly not the difference between a deficit and surplus situation for the time period.
For more detail, see
[1] Analysis of the Growth in Funding for Operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Elsewhere in the War on Terrorism.
[2] Historical Tables, Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2009
13 Responses to “War Related Appropriations for Defense vs. Yearly Budget Deficits (2002-2008)”
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July 20th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
“As can be seen from the chart, while these numbers have contributed to the deficits for the past seven years (just like all other forms of spending have contributed to the deficits), they were clearly not the difference between a deficit and surplus situation for the time period.”
If I follow this reasoning, I can stand at the department store and say to myself, “Well, I wanted to get out of debt, but even if I don’t buy this dress, I’ll still have debt. So, I might as well buy the dress ’cause I can always use a new dress.”
Right. Just betting Perot does not use this kind of reasoning in his own spending.
July 21st, 2008 at 11:43 pm
dlighted323
Thank you for your analogy, although we do not believe that the Administration wanted to “buy” a war as your logic would seem to suggest. In any event, this chart was the result of several inquiries about how much the War on Terrorism had cost the United States (in terms of dollars) and the effect that it was having on the federal budget. There seemed to be a notion that if not for the war, the budget would have been balanced. The purpose of showing the cost of the war against the budget deficits was to dispel that notion. There was no ulterior motive or hidden agenda in producing this chart. We were responding to one of the more often-asked questions and trying to put the amount of spending into some perspective.
July 30th, 2008 at 10:35 pm
It serves that purpose well.
However, ending the military actions in Iraq along would have had us halfway there in balancing the budget in 2008. That’s an action that I can get behind entirely for fiscal reasons.
The graph also shows that in 5 years (2003-2008) spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has about tripled. If that trend continues eventually it will become a serious contender for the title of “Sole reason we’ve got an unbalanced budget.” I certainly hope it never gets there.