Defense Spending Slides in Biggest Drop Since Vietnam
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Defense spending plummeted in the last three months of the year, which may foreshadow the dangers to the economy of across-the-board budget reductions set to kick in March 1.
The 22 percent drop in Pentagon expenditures is probably due to “uncertainty concerning the automatic spending cuts,” Alan Krueger, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, wrote today in a blog post after the Commerce Department released the figures.