Valuing Defense

Tom Paine has posted a revealing essay by an economics professor and an MBA student at Augusta State University in Georgia.

Their discussion of how defense expenditures have been divided into separate budget categories reminds me of how some churches juggle allocations in church budgets to disguise levels of staff salaries and benefits. Anyone who has ever looked closely at such church budgets should have little difficulty grasping the point that Jurgen Brauer and Nicholas Anglewicz are making about the actual percentage of the federal budget that is consumed by defense spending.

I am certain that if more people realized that the average American pays $217.08 a month for defense while only $103.83 a month goes for all the other services of the federal government, that many would call for a change in spending priorities. I, for one, would support a movement that worked to reverse the allocations. 32% of the budget should be sufficient for defense. 68% is way out of line.