Prior to World War II, America's spending on defense during peace times was never more than 2 or 3 percent of GDP, but by 1959 it had risen to about 15% of GDP. This was the beginning of the Cold War, and as President Eisenhower explained it, "modern weapons are exceedingly expensive". He gave examples of the high cost, for example the new fighter jets were fifty times what the fighters of World War II costed. Some of these new certain bombers costed "their weight in gold". In his 1959 State of the Union address, Eisenhower warned against "feverish building of vast armaments". Eisenhower was not necessarily calling for reduced spending on Defense, but rather a more judicious spending to avoid duplication and waste.
"National Security programs account for nearly sixty percent of the entire Federal budget for this coming fiscal year. Modern weapons are exceedingly expensive.Defense spending did decline. In 1959, federal spending on defense had reached almost 15% of GDP or $54 billion, but steadily declined after that. During the 1980s at the height of the Reagan defense build up it hovered around 7%, but dropped to about 3.5 percent in the year 2001. But since the 9/11 terrorist attack, defense spending began to rise again. It reached 5% in 2008, but since then has fallen back down to about 4.5 percent in 2014.
The overall cost of introducing ATLAS into our armed forces will average $35 million per missile on the firing line. This year we are investing an aggregate of close to $7 billion in missile programs alone. Other billions go for research, development, test and evaluation of new weapons systems.
Our latest atomic submarines will cost $50 millions each, while some special types will cost three times as much. We are now ordering fighter aircraft which are priced at fifty times as much as the fighters of World War II. We are buying certain bombers that cost their weight in gold.
These sums are tremendous, even when compared with the marvelous resiliency and capacity of our economy. Such expenditures demand both balance and perspective in our planning for defense. At every turn, we must weigh, judge and select. Needless duplication of weapons and forces must be avoided.
We must guard against feverish building of vast armaments to meet glibly predicted moments of so-called "maximum peril." The threat we face is not sporadic or dated: It is continuous. Hence we must not be swayed in our calculations either by groundless fear or by complacency. We must avoid extremes, for vacillation between extremes is inefficient, costly, and destructive of morale. In these days of unceasing technological advance, we must plan our defense expenditures systematically and with care, fully recognizing that obsolescence compels the never-ending replacement of older weapons with new ones."
But let's look at Eisenhower's comment that defense spending being nearly 60 percent of the entire Federal budget. In 1959 that was true, but by 2005 that percentage had fallen all the way down to 14%. In 2005, 86% of all federal spending was on non-defense related items. Defense spending inched back up to about 25% of all federal spending in 2010, but has begun to fall again. Is America spending less on defense? No, rather America is spending money else where. In 1959, federal spending on healthcare was only about 1% of GDP, by 2014 it reached 7%. Also in 1959, spending on Welfare was about 1.5%, and now has hovered between 4 and 5% in recent years. Similarly, federal spending on pensions rose from 2% in 1959 to almost 7% today. All total, in 2014 federal spending on pensions, healthcare and welfare was $2.2 trillion or 63% of all Federal spending. Today, things have been reversed. In 1959, President Eisenhower said that "modern weapons are exceedingly expensive". Today, we should be saying that modern health and welfare is exceedingly expensive.
References
Presidency.ucsb.edu. (2018). Dwight D. Eisenhower: Annual Message to the Congress on the State of the Union.. [online] Available at: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=11685 [Accessed 13 Mar. 2018].US Government Debt. (2018). US Government Debt. [online] Available at: https://www.usgovernmentdebt.us/ [Accessed 13 Mar. 2018].
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SM-65_Atlas#/media/File:Atlas_missile_launch.jpg
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