Did Clinton "Gut" the Military?

I hear this over and over from both my mom and various Television talking heads. The premise is that Clinton somehow removed the vital organs of the military during his administration.

Research

I found the data to be less than convincing.

First, I took a look at budgeting data over as long a time period as I could find. I typed in some data manually from the White House's OMB historical tables, listing National Defense spending budgets from 1940 to 2003, adjusted to Fiscal Year 2000 dollars for analysis. Then I ran some basic charts in Excel to see what a good gutting looks like. Source: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2005/pdf/hist.pdf. Keep in mind that values are adjusted to FY2000 in the OMB data, and presidential budgets go into effect in October the year after they assume office. For example, George W. Bush's budget went into effect on October 1st, 2002. This was after the US invasion of Afghanistan in Octoboer 2001 through January 2002.

National Defense Budgeting, 1940-2003, in FY 2000 Millions USD. National Defense Budgeting, 1940-2003, in FY 2000 Millions USD.

National Defense Budgeting as a Percentage of Total Budget and GDP National Defense Budgeting as a Percentage of Total Budget and GDP

Average National Defense Spending by Administration Average National Defense Spending by Administration

Conclusion

Clearly, the spending levels during the Bush Sr. administration remained relatively constant during the Clinton administration, despite the end of both the Gulf War and the Cold War in 1991. The 'gutting of the military' appears to be a gross exaggeration.

Data

National Defense Spending 1940-2004.xls
Here's the excel spreadsheet I used to generate the graphs. It's hand typed in from the government documents. I wish they also provided their data tables in CSV format so that anyone could crunch these numbers and run their own comparisons.