Preferably by the current day.Until what time?
If you don't account for inflation it was below that until the late 60's. As long as inflation happens it's going to go up
Nowadays 100 billion would be 0.52% of GDP, which is less than Ireland and only slightly more than Luxembourg
The lack of fiat currency would exacerbate the great depression in a major way. The countries that left the gold standard earlier (UK) tended to recover from the depression faster than others that left it later (France, Belgium). Goldbugs and some libertarians like it because hyperinflation is very difficult, but it severely constrains a government's fiscal and monetary policy toolkit.Okay
- Keep the Cold War a bit cooller, avoid Vietnam and keep Detente ongoing
- Keep the US on the Gold Standard
- Avoid any post Cold War major contingencies
- Dump the Coast Guard out of the Defense Budget sooner
- Shove as much atomic related stuff into the Department Of Energy as possible, form earlier
- Hide as much as you can in other Departments, if necessary forming earlier, shove DARPA into Education, base housing allowance into Health and Human Services ETC.
This should do it until the current day, but involves quite possibly wrecking the US and World Economies to keep inflation that low