Obama plans to increase defense spending

Glenn Greenwald's excellent article shows that Obama is planning to increase defense spending, to $527 billion for FY 2010 (excluding Iraq and Afghanistan). This is equal to what the Bush administration had planned for FY 2010, and is an increase of $14 billion over FY 2009 ($513 billion).

But conservative commentator Robert Kagan is labeling the increase as a 10% decrease as he writes:

"Pentagon officials have leaked word that the Office of Management and Budget has ordered a 10 percent cut in defense spending for the coming fiscal year, giving Defense Secretary Robert Gates a substantially smaller budget than he requested."

How does he reach that misleading number? Simply by comparing the Obama budget to what the Joint Chiefs of Staff had requested earlier:

"Some Pentagon officials and congressional conservatives are already trying to portray the OMB number as a cut by comparing it to a $584 billion draft fiscal 2010 budget request compiled last fall by the Joint Chiefs of Staff."

So the point is that by using the highest requests that were made as a benchmark, whatever Obama plans to spend appears as a decrease, even though it's an increase.