Mitt Romney is campaigning on a platform that emphasizes less spending, smaller deficits and renewed fiscal responsibility.
But in one budget area, Romney is running the opposite direction. The former Massachusetts governor wants to increase defense spending by leaps and bounds. By one estimate, additional spending would exceed $2 trillion over the next decade.
Romney's plan calls for linking the Pentagon's base budget to Gross Domestic Product, and allowing the military to spend at least $4 dollars out of every $100 the American economy produces.
With the Pentagon's base budget -- which does not include war costs -- forecast to hit 3.5% of GDP in 2013, a jump to 4% would mean an increase of around $100 billion dollars in defense spending in 2013.
The additional spending really piles up in future years.
Compared to the Pentagon's current budget, Romney's plan would lead to $2.1 trillion in additional spending over the next ten years, according to an analysis conducted for CNNMoney by Travis Sharp, a budget expert at the Center for a New American Security.
Are we in danger from somewhere that we need a bigger military? Or is spending too high? Should we shrink it maybe?
I think it is too big and should be downsized. There are too many fat contractors sitting in offices in the middle east and east Asia. Soldiers are getting too many benefits too. We should either cut their benefits and pay or put them into civil projects. There are too many soldiers sitting on their assess in bases soaking up government money while they get fed and sheltered.
These people are drains but of course that is unpopular to say because it is considered unpatriotic. Why should we put our college students in debt but keep pumping money into a job core for people who barely make it out of high school?
