Lawrence J. Korb: Alarmist defense cuts won’t help the deficit

  The Pentagon will spend more than $700 billion in the upcoming fiscal year on defense—more than the rest of the world combined and more than at any time in our history except for World War II. The defense budget, exclusive of war costs, has grown in real terms for 13 straight years—the longest period of sustained grown in our nation’s history—and it is now higher than at the height of the Reagan-era buildup. Pentagon spending is the third-largest item in the overall federal budget after Medicare and Social Security and has grown by more than 6 percent since President Obama came into office.