It’s very hard to know what’s true about government spending
I saw this in the Boston Globe this morning and I jotted it down because yet again a bit of totally counterintuitive and confusing info:
“It is not like we have Soviet tank divisions at the German border poised to launch a sneak attack,” said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, an independent research group in Alexandria, Va. “It is not a question of readiness. It is a question of readiness to do what? The defense budget is twice what it was before Sept. 11th and we have half as many enemies. A lot of this is theater. Let them sequester and they will see that nothing happens.” (from The Boston Globe)
"The defense budget is twice what it was before Sept. 11th…" : Really? Twice what it was 10 years ago? I can't tell whether that's true but I suppose it's a number that technically could be objectively determined to be true or false. The second phrase though: "…and we have half as many enemies." is quite odd: I suspect there's a lot of subjectivity in that statement making it impossible to judge true or false.
No wonder I am confuted