Defense spending approaching Cold War high

The Washington Times reports:

As U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld shops his $439 billion, 2007 Pentagon budget request on Capitol Hill this week -- not including about $100 billion in war costs -- he is circumventing sticker shock by pointing to this measure: As a percentage of the economy, the defense budget is at historic lows.
What he does not say is this: As real spending goes, the Pentagon's budgets are now approaching the high-mark of the Reagan era, when the United States was squaring off against a superpower in the height of the Cold War.

There's always a bull market in government spending.Government workers can vote.