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This fact brief was originally published as an experiment to test the concepts behind fact briefs.
Readers should be aware that while there is still a lot of useful information in fact briefs like this one, not all of them reflect Gigafact's current methods and standards for fact briefs. If you come across any that you feel are out of date, don't hesitate to contact us at support@gigafact.org.

Does US national security spending average $2 billion a day?

By Mikayla Campbell
YES

For fiscal 2020, ending Sept. 30, Congress approved a Department of Defense budget of $704.6 billion. Related national-security spending--such as intelligence-gathering--brought total funding to $738 billion, or just over $2 billion a day. Last year's budget was finalized in December as part of overall negotiations with the executive branch, nearly three months after the fiscal year was underway.

The White House is proposing to maintain a similar level in fiscal 2021 of $740.5 billion for national security, including $705.4 billion for DOD.

Political and expert opinion is almost always divided on how much defense spending is enough, a Brookings Institution overview notes. Spending today is relatively much smaller than during much of the 20th century, at about 3% of U.S. economic output, compared to levels as high as 8% during the 1960s.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
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Between 2020 and 2022, under close editorial supervision, Gigafact contracted a group of freelance writers and editors to test the concepts for fact briefs and provide inputs to our software development process. We call this effort Gigafact Foundry. Over the course of these two years, Gigafact Foundry writers published over 1500 fact briefs in response to claims they found online. Their important work forms the basis of Gigafact formats and editorial guidelines, and is available to the public on Gigafact.org. Readers should be aware that while there is still a lot of relevant information to be found, not all fact briefs produced by Gigafact Foundry reflect Gigafact's current methods and standards for fact briefs. If you come across any that you feel are out of date and need to be looked at with fresh eyes, don't hesitate to contact us at support@gigafact.org.
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