In the January 16th Washington Post, the day before the 50th anniversary of President Dwight Eisenhower’s “military-industrial complex” speech to Congress, his granddaughter, and chairman emeritus of the Eisenhower Institute, Susan Eisenhower wrote:

Looking back, it is easy to see the parallels to our era, especially how the complex has expanded since Sept. 11, 2001. In less than 10 years, our military and security expenditures have increased by 119 percent. Even after subtracting the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the budget has grown by 68 percent since 2001. In 2010, the United States is projected to spend

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The banner over Roger’s, a Senior Congressional Correspondent at POLITICO, front-page piece for February 1, 2010 reads, “War Squeeze Obama Budget,” puts an erroneous political spin on the news surrounding the release of the President’s proposed federal budget. It may not be David Rogers’ fault. Editors pick headlines. Still, article’s skews the truth about proposed federal spending for the upcoming year.

Suggesting that defense spending on war-related costs for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq are the principle factors driving a growing federal budget and exploding national debt … Continue Reading

“The Department of Defense’s new proposed budget would dwarf military spending sought during President Ronald Reagan’s time in office, concludes Michael O’Brien of The Hill in a January 25th articel titled “Obama spending more on defense than Reagan had at peak.” O’Brien cites a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report. He also reports Director Douglas Elmendorf wrote in a post on the CBO Blog defense spending “exceeds the peak of about $500 billion (in 2010 dollars) during the height of the Reagan Administration’s military buildup in the mid-1980s.”

On the surface O’Brien’s report makes defense spending seem … Continue Reading

In their April 7, 2009 article “Military Budget Reflects a Shift in U.S. Strategy,” New York Times reporters Christopher Drew and Elisabeth Bumiller describe the Pentagon’s plans to scale back its budget. Yet while describing the context of the new agenda, they write that:

Military experts said Mr. Gates seemed to be mounting a determined effort to rein in some of the most troubled programs after years of record military spending…

The myth that U.S. has been engaged in “record military spending” is repeated so often that few bother to verify it. Many accept it as fact, when it is clearly … Continue Reading