Ben Armbruster points out Rudy Giuliani’s fiscal policy savvy, which the ex-mayor recently demonstrated by commenting on how much the government spends on the military:

He also said that defense spending is “not a major part” of the federal government’s budget, only constituting “about four or five percent” of the total.

Oddly enough, Giuliani thinks even this relatively small amount is out of control:

“Yes, I would try to get control of defense spending,” Giuliani said, but added that it would not solve economic problems.

The budget analyst I cited earlier today added up all “defense”-related spending from the entire budget and found that it made up 23% of the administration’s FY 2012 budget request ($832 billion). So Giuliani is only off by a factor of four or five. Not bad for the guy who has based his entire national political persona on the illusion that he knows something about national security issues. I wonder how many other hawks think that military spending must remain untouched because it is such a small part of the budget.