Fred Thompson’s Defense Diatribe

“Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson may have set a modern record for the amount of sloppy thinking on defense policy in a single speech.  In remarks at the Citadel on Tuesday, Thompson proposed measures for a “revitalized” national defense.”

“The chief “pillar” of Thompson’s proposal is that the United States should not spend less than 4.5 percent of its gross domestic product on defense—not including the vast sums committed each year for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Another crucial pillar is that the U.S. should expand Army and Marine Corps to form a “million-member” force.”

“4.5 percent of GDP is an astonishingly large sum. The U.S. already spends as much on the military as the rest of the world combined, but even that vast outlay apparently does not satisfy Thompson and others who want to lavish more money on the Pentagon. Under his plan—and a similar scheme advanced by the Heritage Foundation earlier this year— the U.S. military budget would soar by nearly $100 billion. The total would approach $600 billion—plus at least another $150 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan. Worse, the 4.5 percent figure is a floor; the actual defense budget of a Thompson administration could be even more.”

Column by Ted Carpenter @ http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=8798