Record Deficits Turn Focus on Military Spending

Tea Party Calls for Deficit Reduction Fuel New Interest in Curbing Pentagon

The two reliable records throughout the Obama Administration have been record deficit spending and record military spending. But with the two rising precipitously, it seems that people are actually starting to wonder if they are at all related.

As impossible as it may seem, the fiscally conservative Tea Party folks in the Congress are breaking new group in wondering if the massive military budget, which dwarfs any other nation’s on the planet and indeed rivals the whole rest of the world combined, might have a deleterious effect on the nation’s budget.

And while most of the long-standing Republicans are reluctant to consider anything but dramatic increases in military spending going forward, their simultanous promises to get spending under control suggest that, sooner or later, the military will have to be considered.

To that end the Tea Party is going to have to rely on support from what is left of the antiwar left if they want to push military spending cuts around the eternally hawkish centrists in both parties. It is an uphill battle, but with both deficit and military spending rising going forward, it is an issue that will only take on more importance going forward.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.