The defense budget is not going to shrink considerably any time soon. In fact Defense is one of the most stable industries in San Diego (and the US) today, but it is not nearly as big it was in the cold war days. It shrunk considerable in the early 90s due to the end of the cold war and it was simply way oversized and everyone agreed on that. Don't think Clinton taking office had anything to do with the shrinking defense budget, sounds like Rush Limbaugh propoganda.

Wait and see. I think the biggest problem is how much we're spending on the Iraq War. It's not going to continue, and the Gov is going to switch to addressing the other(domestic) issues we now have . And I wasn't attacking Clinton. It's just my opinion that it was a shift in dollars from what was important to the Gov at that time. Gov is going to try to address this housing loan issue and going to try a bailout. It's not going to help everyone, but just a small percentage enough so that politicians can say "they did something for the average joe"…. It's not going be a big topic before elections because that would risk polarizing voters and politicians like debating over more "important" issues like abortion rights, gay marriages, creationism versus evolution. But it will be probably something the Gov attempts to fix first after the elections.