Econintersect: What are the USA military’s plans to defend the USA – and how much will it cost? It is laid out in detail in the Congressional Budget Offices annual review.
This estimate combines the Department of Defense’s five year plan (called in this report Future Years Defense Program (FYDP)) with the CBO’s own projections for budget estimate for periods 2011 through 2028.
The projections themselves ignore the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – or any other conflict which the government intends to get involved.
The 2011 budget estimate is up $8 billion from the actual 2010 DoD expenditures – or slightly more than 1% to $707 billion.
The actual report, slices the data between the various branches showing the overall weapons strategy. It appears the budget cutters have their work cut out if there is surgery to this defense budget. The budget is based on objectives – cutting the budget requires cutting the objectives.