[DrillShopper]

They'll never cut defense spending. That's where the most grift and corruption are, and that's the bread and butter for any politician to horse-trade for what they want.

[rufus_foreman]

>> They'll never cut defense spending

Military expenditure (% of GDP) - United States: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS?locat....

They often cut defense spending.

[_aavaa_]

If we switch from % to absolute terms you can see it is almost always up and to the right.

[rufus_foreman]

If the US never cuts defense spending, how did it go from 752 billion in 2011 to 633 billion in 2015?

[_aavaa_]

I did say “almost always” goes up and the to right.

Look at the graph. Sometimes there may be year over year decreases, but the trend is very firmly up and to the right.

[rufus_foreman]

>> I did say “almost always” goes up and the to right

The post I responded to said "They'll never cut defense spending".

[financetechbro]

As per the other commenter. How do you rationalize this?

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.CD?location...

[DrillShopper]

I think we're talking about a different "they".

I'm talking about the Trump administration. They ran on strong foreign policy, want to use the military to deport people, and are ramping up to deal with China.

If you take a look at the graph you linked you'll see for the years in Trump's first term (2017 through the end of the time sequence data in 2023) that it goes up (after starting 2017 down as a result of the previous year's budget) year on year, not down.