Since we have taken the restriction off the word lie, I'll use it instead of distort. He's an economist, and if I can find the real figures, he certainly should. He's lying.
Bill Maher: ....... Conservatives, with all due respect Steve have a habit of coming on my show and making shit up.
Then later
Bill Maher: I know our defense budget was bigger at the height of VietNam, I don't think it was bigger under Kennedy.
Stephen Moore: It was twice as big.
Actually they both are wrong but Steve was, guess what, making shit up. Here's the real figures
Source: National Defense Budget, Estimates for FY 2008, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller) March 2007
http://www.defenselink.mil/...
In the following table you can compare the Republican and Democratic ranked spending on defense. They are ranked from the more frugal to the least frugal. The costs have been adjusted for inflation, and they are based on FY 2000. First column are the Presidents, the second column is, in billions of dollars, the average spent per year. It does not include Iraq War.
Ranking from least to most based on Average Spending Per Year
President $ Billion
- James Earl Carter, Jr. $256.5
- Gerald Rudolph Ford $261
- Harry S. Truman $280.5
- William Jefferson Clinton $301
- John Fitzgerald Kennedy $309
- Dwight David Eisenhower $327.25
- Lyndon Baines Johnson $340.33
- Richard Milhous Nixon $341
- Ronald Wilson Reagan $346.5
- George Herbert Walker Bush $367.5
- George Walker Bush $389.75
The huge Vietnam spending was under Lyndon Baines Johnson not Kennedy. Kennedy spent $302 and $316 billion dollars on defense. Johnson's high was $420 billion. This is what happens when conservatives quote each other as sources.