RSSDiscretionary Spending: Defense v. Non-Defense
Discretionary Spending is typically analyzed in terms of Defense Spending and Non-Defense Spending. The general pattern of the past 40 years finds that as Mandatory Spending has taken a larger proportion of the budget—and therefore, reduced the size of Discretionary Spending—the Defense Spending segment of the budget has absorbed much of the increased Mandatory Spending. This pattern will become clearer in the next two charts: Discretionary Spending: Defense vs. Non-Defense and Defense Spending as Percentage of Gross Domestic Product
4 Responses to “Discretionary Spending: Defense v. Non-Defense”
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June 15th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
Is it possible to break-out defense spending as baseline vs. Iraq engagement? I have heard some pretty sizable numbers about what we are spending there and I would be curious what that leaves as to the rest of the DOD budget. I would suspect that if we were given a victory parade in Baghdad tomorrow, and everyone came home, we would have many years of expense of putting our military back together again from our efforts over there.
ps- very useful charts!
June 15th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
We have had several requests for this information. We will attempt to obtain reliable data with respect to this issue.
July 13th, 2008 at 11:35 am
What about things like the Department of Homeland Security. Are quasi-military-esque organizations included within defense spending, or discretionary?
July 13th, 2008 at 10:15 pm
Yes, Homeland Security and other national security/defense related items are included in the Defense category rather than in the Non-Defense Discretionary category.