Defence spending realities
This snippet re the US economy is from another forum:
'I think the best way to look at the effect of the $85 Bn sequester is to look at fiscal year 2012 which finished 30th September 2012:
Spent $3,538billion, Taxes $2,241billion,Deficit $1,297billion
So the $85billion sequester would have affected fiscal 2012 thus:
Spent $3,453billion,Taxes $2,241billion, Deficit $1,212billion
So the $85billion sequester would have shaved 2.4% from spending and 6.55% from the deficit, but the deficit would still be 35% of spending and 54% of taxes. Obviously there is still a very long way to go.'
As the $85billion is spread across the US economy, it should not cripple their defenc(s)e capacity. In 2010, the US defence-related spend was about $700billion representing around 31 percent of near $2,300billion federal revenue. Seems like plenty of scope for efficiencies.
The same hysteria re defence budget constraints is ongoing in Australia because defence spending was reduced by about 10 percent for this year; although now at around $24billion, still represents 7.5 to 8 percent of estimated government revenue and that is among the top 15 spenders on defence worldwide. See: http://www.comw.org/pda/fulltext/120...Comparison.pdf
The emotive hype re economic constraints seems to be emerging from those lobbying on behalf of big spend defence industry. They are largely pricing some military hardware beyond affordability of many nations and are really disregarding the increasingly parlous state of some economies.