Defense Cuts from Sequestration are Nonsense

Mercatus Center Senior Research Fellow Veronique de Rugy says regardless of sequestration, the defense budget won’t shrink:

All the talk about defense cuts are nonsense. Only in Washington would a reduction in the growth of spending be considered a cut. In real life, if your salary is cut, it does not mean that you will get a smaller raise than expected. 

Overall U.S. military spending, excluding war spending, has doubled in the last 10 years. The world spends almost $1.5 trillion on defense, and the U.S. spends more than any other country—almost half of the world’s total military spending. The U.S. spends six times as much as China and 10 times as much as Russia. 

There is no way defense spending is immune to waste and inefficiency. It’s wishful thinking that we can get spending under control without actually tackling defense.