Not to negate terrible U.S. Government spending on all kinds of worthless things, but go have a look at the U.S. federal budget (see below) and see for yourself

Not to negate terrible U.S. Government spending on all kinds of worthless things, but go have a look at the U.S. federal budget (see below) and see for yourself where the absolute biggest outlays go. For 2022, of the 6.8 trillion official budget, a whopping 4.8 trillion went to mandatory, mostly social spending, most of which was for social security (over 1 trillion) and medicaid/medicare (roughly 1.2 trillion between both). Rather separate subject but relevant too: Defense spending is utterly dwarfed by these, and even for its huge existing defense spending, you can barely expect the U.S. to not keep it high as a major world power that is in effect obligated by many allies to tacitly protect them from the other major hostile powers in the world. A quick look at the Ukraine situation right now and when that war started demonstrates this clearly: many pundits complaining about the U.S. military system but all major European states preferring its presence to its absence when Russia finally went and did something Really Dumb. Guess how many important Asian countries also tacitly depend on the same for vague protection from China. https://www.cbo.gov/publication/58268 https://www.cbo.gov/publication/58268