America's $1 Trillion "Defense" Budget

Last Monday, after the Pentagon released its 2013 budget materials, just about every news article I read inaccurately reported the totals. These articles did not just miss some significant bits not in DOD's press release; they ignored another $380 billion in spending for US national security spending if you take the time to parse through OMB's far more complete and accurate budget materials. AOL Defense ran my explanation How do I get to a $1 trillion US small "d" defense budget; read it below: The Real "Base" Pentagon Budget and the Actual "Defense" Budget Winslow T. Wheeler When the Pentagon released its budget materials and press releases last Monday, the press dutifully reported the numbers. The Pentagon's "base" budget for 2013 is to be $525.4 billion, and with $88.5 billion for the war in Afghanistan and elsewhere added, the total comes to $613.9 billion. Indeed, if you plowed through the hundreds of pages of additional materials the Pentagon released Monday (at http://comptroller.defense.gov/budget.html), you would come up with little reason the doubt the accuracy of those numbers as the totality of what Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta was seeking for the Pentagon. It would also seem reasonable that those amounts constitute the vast majority of what America spends on "defense," defined generically.