Yes, the U.S. Can Afford to Help Its Allies

As his address to the nation from the Oval Office last night underlined, President Joe Biden is expected to send a defense-appropriations request to Congress for perhaps as much as $100 billion to support Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, and to improve U.S. border security. It’s a big request—and it will galvanize a debate about whether the United States is doing too much.

Existing critics of Ukraine aid are already complaining that to add an effort to resupply Israel will prove too crushing. Is that true?

Let’s carefully tally American resources and American commitments.

Thanks to its remarkable rebound from the coronavirus pandemic, the American economy $27 trillion in goods and services. In the fiscal year that ended on September 30, the U.S. $850 billion of that $27 trillion on national defense. That rounds out at a little more than 3 percent of GDP. That’s only about half of the burden of defense spending that the U.S. during the final decade of the Cold War.