Trump's $603 billion baseline national defense budget is about $18.5 billion — or about 3 percent — more than the amount projected by the Obama administration, said Katherine Blakeley, a research fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments…"The historic characterization of it is largely marketing smoke and mirrors," Blakeley said. About $36 billion of the $54 billion will go to military priorities that were already penciled in from last year's Obama administration budget, she said. Meanwhile, Trump could be left with the remaining $18.5 billion in extra funding to pay for a touted buildup that could cost hundreds of billions of dollars over the coming years. "Can the administration pull a rabbit out of a hat?" Blakeley said. "At $603 billion, that's actually not a lot of real money over and above the president's budget plan from last year."
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