Rand Paul in OnTheIssues Fact Checking

On Homeland Security: FactCheck: Yes, military spending as much as next 10 nations

Senator Rand Paul said, "We need a safe country, but, you know, we spend more on our military than the next ten countries combined. I want a strong national defense, but I don't want us to be bankrupt." Is that literally true? We found the answer on Wikipedia, for the top 11 countries in military expenditures (in billions per year):

$581B United States
$129B China
$81B Saudi Arabia
$70B Russia
$62B United Kingdom
$53B France
$48B Japan
$45B India
$44B Germany
$34B South Korea
$32B Brazil

The "next ten countries combined" add up to $598 billion annual military expenditures. Compare that to the U.S.'s annual total of $581 billion, and Sen. Paul is pretty much correct. He spoke a bit loosely, saying "we spend MORE than the next ten countries combined," when he should have said "we spend A COMPARABLE AMOUNT to the next ten countries combined." But we rate his statement as ACCURATE.

Source: OnTheIssues FactCheck on Fox Business/WSJ debate Nov 10, 2015

The above quotations are from Presidential Primary Fact Checking by OnTheIssues.org. Click here for main summary page. Click here for a profile of Rand Paul. Click here for Rand Paul on all issues.
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