should america support Israel?

[Cato]

Does that include the VA and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? Pensions? Interest incurred on the Federal debt? Those aren't usually included as part of the military budget. Thanks for the info. I find data to be more useful in these discussions than speculation. Does that data go back further?

I would also take government spending out of the GDP to get a more accurate picture because that money was removed from the productive economy by taxes. That cuts the real GDP down by a quarter.

I can't say about the VA; I assume not since the VA is not part of the DoD. Yes on Iraq and Afghanistan up to the end of the graph.

Interest on the debt is it's own cost outlay caused by historic deficit spending. Addressing the fact that we spend more in any particular year than tax receipts allow is what is important for debt and deficit discussions.

I would be careful about unpacking government spending from GDP as I think you insert uneeded complexity into the rough analysis. Government GDP will drag down total GDP (sometimes a quarter as you suggest, sometimes more, sometimes less) as in the chart below for 2013; however, I can pretty much guarantee that if we could find the same data during the recession, government spending was contributing significantly to GDP.

Also, how much private sector business contributing to GDP is actually driven by government spending. You may be able to unpack first tier exchanges, but what about upstream vendors supporting product (think manufacturers selling material to GE to build military aircraft engines).