Defense Budget 101

How many stealth fighters do we really need?
By Fred Kaplan
Posted Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2006, at 12:20 PM ET

The new military budget—released Monday by the White House and the Pentagon—has even more smoke, mirrors, and rabbit-stuffed sleeves than usual.

Let us first dispel the official claim, blithely recited by most news reports, that this budget amounts to $439.3 billion—in itself a staggering sum, but by any proper measure, it really totals $513 billion, and, if looked at from a certain angle, it comes to over $580 billion.