The Obama administration’s proposed 2012 defense spending bill, now pending before Congress, proposes the highest level of base spending since World War II when adjusted for inflation, according to analysis by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Analysis, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. "However, total national defense spending as a percent of [gross domestic product] is 4.7 percent" in the proposed 2012 budget, "below the post-World War II average of 6.3 percent," the CSBA report stated. Defense spending amounts to roughly 19 percent of the total budget request for 2012, in comparison to 21 percent in 1976. Key provisions of the measure include $553 billion in discretionary funding and $5 billion funding, in addition to $118 billion to support combat efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq.
