All of the Republican presidential candidates seem to agree that we’re “gutting the military.” The fact is that spending on national defense has doubled in the past 15 years, increasing from $294B in 2000 to $603B in 2014. In fiscal year 2015, military spending accounted for 54 percent of all federal discretionary spending. We’re not gutting it–we’re doubling it, and spending over half of our money on it.
Military spending has to be cut like every other federal program in order to wipe out the deficit and the national debt before we pass a $30 debt to our children in ten years. Maybe we need to stop fighting wars in which we’re willing to sacrifice our own soldiers but we’re not willing to win the wars. Also, we could defund some of the extremely expensive pet projects of some generals that we don’t really need and that will never come to fruition anyway.