Kmarion wrote:
Bertster7 wrote:
Kmarion wrote:
Yes we can see that in the image Bertser posted. I don't think anyone is advocating "let's just make a deficit". He was able to maintain the balance. No matter how you look at it the defense funding increased. He could have placed those funds in other programs, he picked defense. Kennedy stated numerous time that the US was falling behind the Soviets in military spending and he encouraged devoting discretionary funds to be routed into national defense.
That's why I also mentioned that he decreased military expenditure as a percentage of discretionary spending. He dedicated a smaller portion of the budget to the military than his predecessors. Then Nixon came to power and started increasing it.
Kennedy actually criticized Republicans for a "missile gap" to open by not matching Soviet defense spending. Sputnik anyone? Kennedy continuously asked for more military spending to match the Soviets, that a fact my man.
QUESTION. Senator, what do you propose to do to improve the international situation?
KENNEDY. I think we ought to strengthen the armed forces. I don't know whether it's going to be possible for us to appropriate an additional amount of money in the special session of Congress. I hope to talk about that with Senator Johnson tomorrow. Senator Jackson is a member of the Armed Services Committee and has done a great deal of work on that. I think he would agree, and he said so on many occasions on the Senate floor, that we should do it. I don't think we should wait until next year. I am not satisfied with the relative position of the United States vis-a-vis the Soviet Union and the Chinese in military strength. We have seen the great developments in the Polaris in recent days, but we only have a limited amount of Polarises that will be available in 1961 and 1962. I think this program, the commitment which we have made to maintain an airborne alert - all these will require additional funds.
Perhaps that's what he believed. Which from what you say seems very likely. He didn't increase proportional spending though, which I believe is a good thing and perhaps says more about his administration than about him personally.
If you look at the correlations between defence expenditure as a percentage of GDP you can see that when it has risen, big deficits have appeared, when it has fallen, the deficit is small - or sometimes even a surplus.
Defence spending is the key to unlocking the true potential of the US economy. The US military is easily big enough. It's not big enough to police the world, but that's not its role. It is much bigger than it needs to be to defend the US, and significantly assist their allies, against any military threat whatsoever.