Defense spending for the sake of having a big army is a waste. Weapons don't create resources. Weapons help the exchange of resources, enabling the full spectru

Defense spending for the sake of having a big army is a waste. Weapons don't create resources. Weapons help the exchange of resources, enabling the full spectrum of trade, from don't take my stuff! all the way to give me all your stuff! but sticking mostly to reasonable trades. The value from defense spending came from darpa or specialized research projects by the various branches of DoD. It's a pretty small fraction in relation to total spending. darpa itself is about .5% of defense spending. Building that first stealth bomber is really cool, it drives a ton of innovation and research. building the 12th one doesn't do a whole lot for the economy. It seems to take a bridges worth of taxes and park it on a runway in saudi arabia. social spending is weird. there are homeless folks in town that rack up 300k emergency medical bills from, well, living on the street. it would be a lot cheaper just to rent them an apartment and hand over a case of beer every day. The big win of social security, it's way cheaper to give someone who couldn't work more than an hour a day 6k/year to heat their house and feed themselves. way cheaper than nursing homes or whatever. fwiw, medicare and medicaid pay fixed amounts, making more money means being more efficient. a lot of the private hospital profitability comes from meeting federal requirements more efficiently every year.