This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Monday, March 16, 2015.

I'm Caleb Brown.

Do we really spend more and get less for our military?

And today's Cato Policy Forum on the Pentagon Budget, Cato Vice President for Defense

and Foreign Policy Studies, Chris Preble, said many of the problems of Pentagon spending have

to do with delaying inevitable difficult choices about America's security

priorities. First of all we are spending a lot on our military and I think we will

spend a lot over the next decade,

regardless of what happens based on what Todd just said.

Second, we are or we appear to be getting

less for what we spend, which is why a number of people think we should spend more.

And third, I think that reasonable efforts to bring this under control to get more bang for

the buck are

unlikely to succeed for all the reasons people said.

It's gonna be hard, but it'll be harder still

if the budget increases significantly. I think there's a better chance for reform

under the current caps or some constrained as opposed to increases. So point one,

military spending in inflation adjusted terms is still quite high in historic terms.

If you take out the cost of the wars, you look just at the Pentagon budget, we're going to spend on average in the next five years

more than we spent during the Cold War in inflation adjusted terms.

No one really disputes that.

Now a number of people say, fairly, that that statistic, absolute spending, inflation justice spending,

...