Maya McGinnis

We have two parties who are always trying to outbid each other by giving away more, both spending and tax cuts.

The fiscal pander has become the default political move these days, and that's really how the debt situation is so bad.

100% is going to make you stop for a second, at least, and think, is this really healthy for the economy?

And the unequivocal answer is no.

We have two parties who are always trying to outbid each other by giving away more, both spending and tax cuts.

The fiscal pander has become the default political move these days, and that's really how the debt situation is so bad.

This is not one of those situations where you can just say, yes, let somebody else fix this problem.

It took decades to get this deep in the hole in terms of fiscal policy.

It's going to take all of us to help fix the situation.

The appropriation for the Pentagon is one of the biggest items in the spending bills that fund the federal government.

This year, it comes in at $839 billion.

Maya McGinnis is president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

She says the Pentagon spends the most on operations and maintenance of equipment.

The second biggest expensive thing is people, personnel.

U.S.

service members are set to get a 3.8% pay increase.

And then there's the cost of developing and acquiring new weapons, ships, and planes.

Procurement.

There's research and development.

The total Pentagon appropriation increased by less than 1 percent over last year, according to the Committee for Responsible Federal Budget.