The congressional supercommittee has only a few days left to come up with a plan to cut $1.2 trillion from the federal deficit. One of the areas on the chopping block is the nation's defense budget.
As the officials consider what has to go, says Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, some cuts may bleed less than others. The cost per person in the military increased by 46 percent in real terms over the past decade.
When including war funding, the Department of Defense grew by more than 70 percent over the past decade, Harrison says. And even excluding war funding, the budget still grew by nearly 40 percent.
The main reason for the increase isn't the number of active duty officers — which remained about the same over the past decade — but skyrocketing personnel costs, mainly incentives to keep service members from quitting during wartime. Congress added pay raises for troops every year and the Pentagon keeps paying more for health care and pensions.
"So as a result, the cost per person in the military increased by 46 percent in real terms over the past decade," Harrison says.