As anyone exposed to a whiff of news media knows, Republicans and Democrats are more divided than ever. They just can’t come together like they used to, goes the cliché.

But this week, they did come together. Republican Paul Ryan and Democrat Patty Murray hashed out a budget deal to avoid automatic sequestration cuts. It was a genuine “compromise,” as the Daily Show’s Jon Stewart quipped.

As has been widely reported, the real motivator in this “compromise” was the supposedly “dire” cuts in defense spending. There have been vociferous warnings from Congress and the Pentagon that sequestration will weaken America by taking an ax to national defense and leaving us vulnerable to attack.

Obviously that’s nonsense. The U.S. could cut its defense budget in half, unthinkably more drastic than sequestration, and still outspend China, which is the U.S.’s next highest spending competitor.