Center for American Progress

The Next U.S. President and the Pentagon’s $610 Billion Budget
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The Next U.S. President and the Pentagon’s $610 Billion Budget

Lawrence Korb writes that even though the amount spent on U.S. defense is more than adequate, the next president will still face challenges in dealing with the distribution of the budget.

The next woman or man to occupy the Oval Office will have to make hard choices about how to spend our defense dollars to deal with current and future defense challenges.

First in defense dollars are policy. Not allocating sufficient funds to the Pentagon or allowing it to spend scarce resources on the wrong items will make it more difficult to protect our vital national security interests. On the other hand, spending too much will undermine our ability to fund other national security components, like foreign aid and homeland defense that also contribute to our security, or weaken our economic strength which is the foundation of a strong national security. Second, no matter how much this nation spends on defense, we cannot buy perfect security.

The above excerpt was originally published in Fox Business. Click here to view the full article.

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Authors

Lawrence J. Korb

Senior Fellow