Military accounts for more than half of Federal discretionary budget

Hellman says a $399.1-billion budget represents a $16.9-billion increase over current spending and accounts for 17% of the nation’s total budget. But eliminate Social Security and other mandatory programs, and defense spending would be 51% of the discretionary budget.

…Bush’s wimpy critics are missing the point. The question isn’t: Hey, what was he doing landing on that aircraft carrier?



It’s this: Why do we have nine of them?

Steve Lopez in the LA Times