October 10, 2012

Pitchfork in the Road

travis sharp / CNAS

TRAVIS SHARP / CNAS

Travis Sharp over at the Center for a New American Security has put the various presidential defense-spending options into his calculating Cuisinart and pushed the Purée button.

It yields the chart above, which he has published over at The Best Defense.


SHARP
Tine's Up: Where Pentagon spending heads from here.

 

What’s striking is Sharp‘s pitchforked path that the five options project into the future.

Romney’s two budget plans show military spending jumping nearly vertically from today’s spending levels.

The other three possibilities – President Obama’s Future Years Defense Plan, the post-sequestration plan that will cut defense spending to 2007’s level, and a post-Cold War-size drawdown – all show sharp immediate drops in defense spending. But all three slowly begin growing soon thereafter.

If national security and, in particular, defense spending, play a major role in who you plan to vote for next month, the choice couldn’t be more stark.

Read more: http://nation.time.com/2012/10/10/pitchfork-in-the-road/#ixzz28u6iz8PV