The figures in the article don't include appropriations, however the total appropriations are included in the national debt, and can in fact be estimated by calculating the change in debt (actual) and subtracting the change in debt (budgetary). Note that the budget includes the interest on the debt, so that is not a factor to worry about in this calculation. As an economist, you should have some experience at estimating hidden information using publicly available financial data.

Again as per your own quotations of the article, the appropriations items are not included in the budgets. I continue to contend that claiming defense spending is only 4.8% of GDP when the appropriations dwarf this amount and most of those appropriations are related to wars is rather disingenuous. It may be true in a certain sense, but only in the sense that the budget doesn't reflect the spending of the country at all since all the appropriations dwarf it and hide the real picture.

I'm sure if the situation were reversed, and the military spending was entirely on the budget while all the social programs were appropriations and I claimed social spending was 0% of GDP, and military spending was 40% you'd cry foul just as quickly, and correctly so.

Also using % of GDP is misleading as it doesn't given a clear fiscal picture of a country given widely disparate tax policies. What is the federal government revenue as a % of GDP? If you're spending 4.8% of GDP on military and your revenue is under 20% of GDP then non-appropriated military spending is going to be over 25% of the budget.