Defensive Spending: Congressional Response to Public Support of Defense Spending.

As the debate over cuts to defense spending amplify, due to the sequestration deal and ongoing budget deficits, an old question gains new salience: Does public opinion matter when it comes to defense spending? This paper's focus is to explain fluctuations in defense spending as a function of constituent support of defense. Shortterm shocks will result in permanent effects to the defense budget. The goal is to determine if the long-term upward trend is explained by short-term increases in support of the military. Defense spending is equated with security. One of the primary goals of politicians is to be reelected. Thus, when constituent preferences increase in favor of defense, Congress will increase the defense budget to mirror their voter's preferences. These short-term changes should result in long term increases in the mean defense budget because cuts to the defense budget are unappealing and can harm incumbents' reelection. Within the current deliberation on defense spending, a renewed examination of the data is necessary. Utilizing new and current data from a broad base of sources, such as ANES, Gallup, and the SIPRI, we reexamine this issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]