I keep seeing this, but never a citation. Looking at the best data I could find: http://www.census.gov/manufacturing/m3/prel/pdf/table1p.pdf http://www.census.

I keep seeing this, but never a citation. Looking at the best data I could find: http://www.census.gov/manufacturing/m3/prel/pdf/table1p.pdf http://www.census.gov/manufacturing/m3/prel/pdf/table1p.pdf Total output: 436,031 Excluding defense: 424,680 Making defense, at least how it's defined in this report, merely 2% of the total output. I'm not sure how much of that 2% is going to the U.S. government as these defense contractors also produce quite a bit for other countries. That probably doesn't cover the total of it, but I just can't find any substantiation that the government is buying up a significant amount of the manufacturing output. Does someone have a source to help me better understand this?