GodZilla: The DoD Eats the Federal Budget
Washington Post
In the White House budget for the fiscal year ending in October 2007, Pentagon funding would increase by nearly 7 percent and, for the first time in Bush's presidency, claim more than half the government's expenditure on discretionary programs, those that get set each year. The $439.3 billion that the plan devotes to the military is 45 percent greater than the Pentagon budget when Bush took office five years ago.
Here's the skinny. The Federal government is quickly becoming the DoD plus entitlement programs. Everything else is getting squeezed out. These entitlement programs (social security and healthcare) are still the third rail of American politics and will stay that way. The problem is that once the DoD is shown to be ineffective at defending the US (and it will be once the next attacks occur), confidence in the only remaining function of the Federal system will be completely undermined. Reminder: The attackers on 9/11 IGNORED the DoD and future attackers will do the same. [John Robb's Weblog]