Listen, I hate the debt, but we have an income problem, not a spending problem. The military looks like a waste, but it does more than build bombs i.e research etc.

The issue we have is that republican every chance they get since the 1970s have cut taxes. And then blamed democrats for causing the deficits. We don't need smaller governments. We need a reasonable tax system that taxes people. It can be progressive like it was before we decided rich people just need it easier than poor people.

Yes, I will pay more taxes sign me up, especially if they can finally fix the roads and fund research. The problem is my taxes as a middle-class person go up and rich people get a tax cut. It's stupid. I like water provided by government utilities, I like planes that don't crash into stuff because there are air traffic controllers. These things used to work because we paid for them. When you buy cheap you get cheap.

Yeah republicans claim to want to run the government like a business, but the first thing a business should do when they have a deficit is raise revenue! And especially in the case of the US government, the the only barriers to doing that are self-imposed.

Military also employs a bunch of people who otherwise would be poor. Also provides a gentrification path for a bunch of previously poor people extending throughout their lives.

Yes, a big part of the size is because the military is a massive and horrendously inefficient jobs, education, housing, and healthcare program.

Don't forget all the beak-wetting that happens along the way when signing contracts etc. That's where an actual difference could be made.

I think people VASTLY overestimate the amount of graft in military procurement.

Lockheed only has a $100b market cap. Raytheon has $200b. General Dynamics $74b

The reality is that US defense spending pays American designers and American laborers high prices for their American effort. We pay basically the same prices for ammo and supplies and services as other countries.

When we pay $13 billion for an aircraft carrier, that's just what it costs to build a gigantic boat with nuclear reactors. The French paid $4 billion for their aircraft carrier, and a $12 billion Gerald R. Ford class is over twice as large as the Charles de Gaulle (40k tons vs 100k tons), and much much much more advanced.

Americans love to misunderstand the cost of military things. They will scream about the F35's $1.5 trillion "price tag", ignoring that the estimate is for 50 years of operations and maintenance as well as initial purchase. Actual purchase price is about $90 million a plane, which is reasonable. Which makes sense, since being not stupidly overpriced was a key point of the program. The operational cost is about $40k a flight hour, which is roughly the same as the F-14, another high tech superplane program.

40k per flight hour is actually extremely reasonable for an advanced aircraft - good luck trying to charter a large cabin private jet for cheaper.