US Defense Budget, The Aviation Week View

First some numbers.   Aviation Week is good on numbers, unlike the mainstream newsies.

Estimated 2014 Budget:  $612.5 billion. ($847 billion including non-Defense personnel costs) 
Percent of GNP               4.4 %
Personnel under arms       1.4 million active, 850,000 reserves
Deployments                    Major operations in Irag and Afghanistan. deployments in 90+ other countries.

A few comments.  Back when I was in high school, defense spending was 10% of GNP.  So 4.4% doesn't seem outrageously high to me.  Those 850,000 reserves have been called up repeatedly to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan.  The regulars have been doing back to back combat zone deployments.  We ought to have a larger Army and Marine Corps to spread the burden out a little more evenly.

The Air Force is thinking about scrapping all the KC10 tankers, all the B1B bombers, and all the A10's.  And  the last batch of Global Hawk recon drones.   They want to keep the B52's, the KC135's and the F35 program.