One of the reactions to Paul Ryan’s budget from the left and the press has been the canard that it doesn’t address the real elephant in the room – a supposedly bloated Pentagon. Senate Democratic whip Dick Durbin said today that “When he doesn’t address savings in the Department of Defense and doesn’t deal with revenue, it results in dramatic cuts in Medicare benefits and Medicaid services.”

The reality, as Ryan’s budget notes, is that “defense spending as a share of the budget has fallen from 25 percent thirty years ago to around 20 percent today.” He also writes that defense did not get us into our current fiscal predicament – “Unlike defense, the share of the budget that goes to these entitlement programs [Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid] is growing rapidly.” He describes how the government agencies funded by non-defense discretionary spending “have been the beneficiaries of a major spending spree over the last two years.” Ryan adroitly handles accusations that he is leaving a big pot of money at the Pentagon untouched by reminding skeptics that “The first job of government is to secure the safety and liberty of its citizens.”