Dollars & Sense
Defense Spending in Perspective When the subject of federal spending is discussed, the defense budget is often cited as a leading expenditure source. However, this is an inaccurate statement. Entitlement spending has been vastly outpacing defense allocations for years by a wide margin. In 2018, defense spending was 3.1 percent of US gross domestic product, while entitlements stood at 12.1 percent, nearly four-fold imbalance. Projections suggest this gap may widen in the future given demographic