William Voegli in the Wall Street Journal:

Military spending is a minor factor in the overall growth of government. It was 23.2% of federal spending and 5.2% of gross domestic product in 1981. Those percentages peaked in 1987 at 28.1% and 6.1%, respectively. Defense spending fell steadily thereafter, and was just over 16% of the federal budget and 3% of GDP from 1999 through 2001. Since September 11, defense spending has climbed to 20% of the federal budget and 4% of GDP. Despite the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, both figures are lower than they were at any point during Jimmy Carter’s presidency.

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Paul Weyrich, a founder of the Moral Majority, has announced he’s supporting Mitt Romney for the Republican nomination. Anybody interested in the 2008 race may find this interesting:

“I felt it would come down to a contest between Giuliani and Romney,” Weyrich said. “I don’t want Giuliani as the nominee because a lot of our values voters will defect… I know the same argument is made about Romney, but eventually, I think those voters can be brought around. There is a hardcore group that absolutely will not vote for Giuliani… I don’t think they’ll go for a third party candidate, I think they’ll stay home. I think there’s no convincing them. I’ve talked to a number of these folks. Even though they recognize that Hillary is a real problem, they think that it’s better to have somebody bad like that than it is to have somebody halfway reasonable.”

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