Stephen Mihm, Columnist

Truman's War on Pentagon Waste

As Trump pushes to spend billions more on defense, a useful reminder of how much can be saved.

The Truman show.

Photographer: Bettmann via Getty Images
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In his address to Congress Tuesday, Donald Trump pledged to eliminate the so-called “defense sequester,” a statutory limit on defense spending enacted in 2011, so that a $54 billion increase for the Pentagon would be possible. But that would require devastating cuts to other parts of the federal government, steep increases to the federal deficit, or both.

What if there was a way that Trump could get what that military bump without spending one more dime of taxpayer money? And what if this involved collaborating with Congress so that both sides could claim victory over big government?