On July 20th, The Heritage Foundation launched the Four Percent For Freedom Petition calling on President Obama and Congress to halt defense spending cuts. If Congress passes Obama’s budget, America will spend less on defense than before the September 11th attacks. This puts our men and women in uniform at risk. In total, 112,623 Americans signed the petition to call on Obama and Congress to protect America by maintaining a minimum defense budget of 4% of GDP. Obama’s budget will put defense spending at historical lows but this type of …
This afternoon Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) and Representative Trent Franks (R-AZ) introduced a joint resolution to maintain defense spending at 4 percent of our nation’s GDP. Heritage Distinguished Fellow and former Senator from Missouri, Jim Talent, commented that the legislation was “vital for America. There is a huge shortfall between what the military is spending and what it needs to spend.” This legislation, of course, comes in light of last month’s troubling announcement that the Office of Management and Budget, under the guidance of President Barack Obama, has requested that …
In a recent item on The Huffington Post, Bernard Finel argued that “analysts at the Heritage Foundation seem to want to politicize defense” policy by linking defense spending to four percent of America’s Gross Domestic Product. In Finel’s view, Heritage’s efforts are nothing more then a veiled effort to “creating a budget crisis that would justify slashing domestic entitlement programs.” While the vast expansion of entitlement programs is of a concern to Heritage – and the necessary reforms to keep these programs affordable and sustainable is assuredly necessary – Heritage’s …
