PrintSeptember 22, 2009
Graph of the Day for September 22, 2009
"The United States will be paying the price of Iraq for decades to come. The price tag will be all the greater because we tried to ignore the laws of economics -- and the cost will grow the longer we remain."
Linda J. Bilmes (former CFO at the Commerce Department, teaches at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government) and Joseph E. Stiglitz (professor at Columbia University, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Bill Clinton, and 2001 Nobel Prize winner in economics), writing in the Washington Post.
National Defense Spending as a Percentage of GDP
Source: The Heritage Foundation, based on data from the White House Office of Management and Budget.
Hoven's Index for September 22, 2009
National defense spending as a percentage of total federal outlays in 1990: 23.9%.
National defense spending as a percentage of total federal outlays in 2007: 20.2%.
Source: Calculated from data in Table 455 of the US Statistical Abstract.
