Obama’s Admirably Frugal $680 Billion Pentagon Budget
Barack Obama signed a $680 billion Pentagon spending bill yesterday — and the New York Times’ Christopher Drew reports that the administration did a bang up job cutting costs! The $680 billion is more than the last Bush administration Pentagon budget, which was $654 billion (that figure includes the Pentagon bill, plus the spending on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, which the Bush White House budgeted separately) . But the focus of this bill has been on what isn’t included — extravagant programs like Army modernization and missile defense have been pared down and the bill apparently better reflects current military priorities. Hopefully the first cut will not (ahem) be the deepest: the re-ordering of priorities in this budget will only be significant if Obama can leverage further, more substantial cuts in the next three Pentagon budgets.