I agree, though, that we should be spending MORE on Defense, not less. These proposed base closures are the wrong way to go...I hope President Bush rejects the whole lot & closes the BRAC instead...and, he could throw in the Dept. of Education, too. I'm sure Reagan--the Master of Better Living Through Increased Defense Expenditures--would approve...
Yes, be assured, that historical numbers are recalculated to accomodate changes within the government, e.g., Homeland Security departments going from one agency to another. OMB will have to go back and restructure all past historical data so that past years can be compared to future years, etc. They did this in the 2006 FY Budget.
On the second point re base closings, I would be all for this if this cost savings would be applied to Spec Ops, security, border control etc. but we know it will not.
The cost savings will find its way into even more gigantic social welfare. The U.S. is fastly reaching the point where global and domestic welfare is swallowing up all spending, and that we don't have enough money to develop and design and produce and maintain modern weapon systems. China and Russia both know this.
The decline of our military is masked by its spending on the war on terror. Large $$$ of spending does not equate to greater miltary capability since it is going for the war effort and logistics and building construction in Iraq, not production and development of modern weapon systems and defenses.