At least when it comes to aircraft carriers.

At a dinner party on Manhattan’s upper east side recently, I asked my table-mates how many aircraft carriers they thought America had in service. It wasn’t an idle question. It was triggered by comments from two of the guests. Both had just returned from Iran, and one was a senior European Union staffer involved with security issues. Their report was seriously distressing, and the conversation turned to the possibility of U.S. (or Israeli) intervention.

The answers to my question – how many carriers — ranged from 22 to 100. The EU expert weighed in with 40. All were shocked to learn that the United States has a total of just 11 aircraft carriers. And even that number is misleading: two are in dry-dock, one for a four-year refueling; six are various stages of refurbishment, training and certification and can, in theory, be ready to “surge” in 30 to 90 days. But only three are actually deployed.

One of the few actual responsibilities of the United States government is to provide for the common defense. And yet we’re repeatedly told that America can’t afford to fulfill that obligation in the world today. How is that possible? We have an annual budget totaling over $3 trillion and an annual deficit of $1.3 trillion. How can we not afford a strong defense?

Well, the answer is simple: The federal government spends the overwhelming majority of the budget on crap it’s not supposed to be funding. Contrary to popular belief, most of our budget doesn’t go to protecting the country or fighting wars.

The Pentagon is on track to spend $720 billion in 2011. That sounds like quite a chunk of change. That is, until you remember that the deficit for this past year was $1.3 trillion. If you eliminated every cent the federal government spends on protecting the country, you’d still have a $580 billion annual deficit.

And that’s just the deficit. That’s just what we spent over what we took in through tax receipts. The federal government spent more ($787 billion) on a failed stimulus package that left us with 9.6% unemployment. The health care bill is projected to cost more than a trillion dollars. And the 2010 budget is estimated at $3.55 trillion.

So let’s put an end to this myth that we can’t afford a strong national defense. What we can’t afford is the unfunded entitlements, never-ending welfare, and pork projects funded by the federal government. It’s time to rebuild our national defense, and we can do that without increasing the deficit or mounting debt. All it takes is refocusing our priorities.