In this case balanced is just an accounting term. All it means is that debits equal credits, ie. you spend what you receive.
With a quick look at this year’s expected US federal deficit ($1.15T), what you paraphrase Hudson on is roughly correct, depending on what you count as military. The DoD budget itself is $817B, plus there’s the Department of Energy nuclear programs, and any number of intelligence agencies and black budgets which you could lump in together as military spending.
This has basically always been the case too. The treasury bill standard came into being precisely because the US wanted more and more military activity, but they had exhausted the ability to pay for it by the beginning of the invasion of Vietnam.
In this case balanced is just an accounting term. All it means is that debits equal credits, ie. you spend what you receive.
With a quick look at this year’s expected US federal deficit ($1.15T), what you paraphrase Hudson on is roughly correct, depending on what you count as military. The DoD budget itself is $817B, plus there’s the Department of Energy nuclear programs, and any number of intelligence agencies and black budgets which you could lump in together as military spending.
This has basically always been the case too. The treasury bill standard came into being precisely because the US wanted more and more military activity, but they had exhausted the ability to pay for it by the beginning of the invasion of Vietnam.