True: Trump signed the largest investment in national defense since the days of Ronald Reagan.

By: Archana Naresh
September 24 2020

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True: Trump signed the largest investment in national defense since the days of Ronald Reagan.

Fact-Check

The Verdict True

In 2018 Trump administration allotted $670.6 billion for the defense budget, the highest since Ronald Reagan (1981-1989) was the incumbent.

Claim ID 844ce90c

In 2018 Trump administration allotted $670.6 billion for the defense budget, the highest since Ronald Reagan (1981-1989) was the incumbent.President Donald Trump unveiled the 2019 Missile Defense Review on January 17, 2019. During the meet, Vice President Mike Pence claimed that President Trump signed the largest investment in the U.S. national defense in 2018 since the days of Ronald Reagan. The U.S. National defense budget from 1981 to 2019 reveals a constant increase in defense investment year-on-year. When the military budget is mentioned, generally, it refers to discretionary budget authority. As per the Discretionary Budget Authority data, in 2018, $670.6 billion was allocated by the Department of Defense (Discretionary) (Refer Page No.8 of the National Defense Budget Estimates for FY 2020). For the year 2019, the Defense budget was $693,058,000,000 (including Discretionary and Mandatory Budget Authority)(Refer Page No.13 Table 1-1 of the National Defense Budget Estimates for FY 2020). The budget increase in defense in 2019 in the U.S. was the largest in decades.

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