Skip this site's navigation and go to its main content

Receive Updates From Heritage

Receive Updates From Heritage

The Heritage Foundation
Leadership for America

Our Vision

Building an America where freedom, opportunity, prosperity, and civil society flourish.

About The Heritage Foundation

Founded in 1973, The Heritage Foundation is a research and educational institution—a think tank—whose mission is to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense. We believe the principles and ideas of the American Founding are worth conserving and renewing. As policy entrepreneurs, we believe the most effective solutions are consistent with those ideas and principles.

1x1 000000

Host a Screening of Our Missile Defense Documentary

1x1 000000

Learn How New Health Care Policy Will Affect You

The First Duty of Government

Posted February 13th, 2008 at 12:10pm in Protect America 0 Print This Post Print This Post

Writing in Human Events, W. Thomas Smith, Jr. reminds us of Adam Smith’s first duty of government: “protecting the society from the violence and invasion of other independent societies.” To that end Republican lawmakers are pushing a proposal to set a floor on military spending at 4% of GDP.

Congressional Quarterly reports that sponsors of the resolution (H J Res 67) point out that the percentage GDP spent on defense today is low compared to other eras. Not including supplemental funding for Iraq and Afghanistan, the fiscal 2009 budget spends about 3.6% of GDP on defense. During the Korean war that percentage was 13%-14%, during Vietnam it was 7%-9%, and during World War II it was 37%-38%.

House sponsor of the legislation, Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) told CQ: “This is the only way we can stop the inexorable slide on national defense.”

Tags: , ,

Conn Carroll Author: Conn Carroll

You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Related Posts

Leave a Comment

In order to leave a comment, you must supply information for all of the required fields below (which are indicated by bold text).

Comments are subject to approval and moderation. We remind everyone that The Heritage Foundation promotes a civil society where ideas and debate flourish. Please be respectful of each other and the subjects of any criticism. While we may not always agree on policy, we should all agree that being appropriately informed is everyone's intention visiting this site. Profanity, lewdness, personal attacks, and other forms of incivility will not be tolerated. Please keep your thoughts brief and avoid ALL CAPS. While we respect your first amendment rights, we are obligated to our readers to maintain these standards. Thanks for joining the conversation.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.