<<If GDP in 2003 surpasses $11 trillion as expected, then the administration's defense budget would represent about 3.3% of the economy -- less than half the average of the last 50 years.>>
The question is, though, do our defense needs actually expand with the expansion of the economy? Does it cost more to "defend" a larger economy? Why should it be so?
More than one person has remarked over the past several decades that if someone wanted to make a long term plan to diminish the power of the US they would encourage the continued polarization of society into extremes of wealthy and poor and the progressive degeneration of public school systems, especially for less well off people who begin with fewer advantages. Sure, some poster boys/girls will "climb out" of poverty, and will be pointed to as examples for the "rest of them". But just as sure, most won't.
Aristotle pointed out long ago that revolutions in "polities" (his term for mixed governments that are combinations of oligarchy and democracy, which is basically what the US is) occur when imbalances result from either the oligarphs (the rich) or the people (the poor and middle class) gaining too much power and not treating the others or the state responsibly. This is taking place before our eyes. Bush's budget and his long term project will result in disaster, IMHO, though perhaps not for a couple of decades.
