[cemerick]

Ah, indeed, I was sloppy in my wording in that prior message.

I should have said is that defense is the largest single category of discretionary spending, by a large margin. The thrust of the point remains.

[ahmeneeroe-v2]

Okay, addressing the main thrust:

Defense spending is absolutely a priority of this administration. SecDef Hegseth's whole thing is about reorienting the Pentagon back to American defense as the priority. Remember that getting Hegseth confirmed was a major push for the brand new admin.

So spending won't go down but will hopefully be spent more effectively.

[cemerick]

"Effective for what?" is always the key question. Various unhinged "proposals" (invading greenland, invading panama, an iron dome-like system to cover basically all of north america to shoot down...whatever Canada and Cuba will launch at us??) suggest nothing other than full funding++, used in dumb ways (which I suppose is better than circa 2002 WoT defense spending?).

Until last November, Hegseth's "whole thing" was being a frat anchor / defense witness for Fox. Talking about him being anything like a serious figure is absurd.