Slash Defense Spending

Eugene Robinson's column in today's Washington Post, "Trimming a Bloated Defense Budget," advocates just what I did in yesterday's post: we can go a long way towards solving the federal deficit problem by reducing the size of our military.

Mr. Robinson provides some interesting figures that put our military spending into perspective:

The United States accounts for 46.5 percent of the world's total defense spending, according to a widely accepted recent estimate. The next-biggest spender is China, which has undertaken an immense buildup to become a military as well as economic superpower - yet accounts for just 6.6 percent of the world's total.

And while the debt-ridden U.S. government shells out for nearly half of all global defense expenditures, our most loyal, stalwart, shoulder-to-shoulder allies - Britain and France - pitch in just 3.8 percent and 4.2 percent, respectively, of the world total.

What would the world look like if we cut our military spending? Maybe it would be more peaceful.