President Obama’s budget cuts defense by $487 billion over the next ten years. Furthermore, the president has not led an effort to avoid an additional $500 billion of cuts under the so-called “sequestration,” which will likely result in what Obama’s secretary of defense predicts will be “smallest ground force since 1940, the smallest number of ships since 1915, and the smallest Air Force in its history.”

But instead of following the president’s path, House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan chose to lead. He proposed a budget last week that actually increases defense in real terms each year—“[it puts] defense first among government’s priorities while simultaneously lifting the debt burden and ensuring a more prosperous America would enable the nation to afford a modernized military that is properly sized for the breadth of the challenges America faces,” the proposal states.