A footnote for budget wonks. There are two ways to look at American military budgets: the money appropriated to the Defense Department (known as TOA, for Total Obligational Authority) and the money appropriated to military functions, including the Defense Department, the Energy Department's nuclear weapons programs, and so forth (this is known as BA, for Budget Authority). According to the Pentagon comptroller's published "Green Book," the TOA for Fiscal Year 1952, the peak year of the Korean War, was $496.8 billion in constant FY 2004 dollars; Budget Authority was $517.3 billion. In fiscal year 1968, the peak year of the Vietnam War, TOA was $427.7 billion; BA was $434.0 billion. In FY 1985, the peak year of Reagan's Cold War buildup, TOA was $453.2 billion; BA was $469.1 billion. However you measure it—in TOA or BA, with or without the costs of reconstruction—Bush's request for this year exceeds the budgets of every year since FY 1952. There is a slight caveat here. The initial request of $400 billion is in TOA. The $87 billion supplemental is calculated in "outlays"—in other words, actual spending. (The appropriations of a given year are not all spent in that year. The outlays of a given year include some of that year's appropriations as well as leftover sums from previous years' appropriations.) It is impossible to calculate precisely how much of the $400 billion TOA will be spent this year. In other words, the figures for this year and those for past years are not precisely commensurate. However, they are close enough. In any case, the conclusion is certain: This year's budget is larger than any budget since FY 1952.