Big rollout of the U.S. military’s budget request for 2012 today (of course, 2011’s still isn’t finalized — and the fiscal year is nearly half over — but that’s another matter). This first chart traces the budget from 2001 through 2016, if the Administration gets its way. The growth from $316 billion in 2001 to this year’s planned $708 billion is staggering.
But it’s the future that’s always interesting in these charts. You can see it shows a two-year decline in spending beginning next year (aka reality) before it begins climbing again in 2014 (aka dreamland). The grey area is “OCO” — overseas contingency operations — which most of us call the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. This lightly-scrutinized funding wedge was used during the Bush Administration to buy lots of weapons unrelated to actual combat, and it’s heartening to see the Obama Administration shrinking this share of the budget to more accurately reflect the wars’ true fiscal costs.
Speaking of which…
…here is how the Pentagon wants to spend its war funds in 2012:
