Military expenditures are about %4.2 [1] of GDP, compared lets say the financial sector which has increased to %8.4 from it's under %3 level in the 1950s[2]. O

Military expenditures are about %4.2 [1] of GDP, compared lets say the financial sector which has increased to %8.4 from it's under %3 level in the 1950s[2]. Or the healthcare sector, which consumes 17.4% of GDP in the USA[3]. Compared to the typical average of ~%11 for countries with socialized medicine. Most of the US tax expenditure goes towards social security and medicare. But your talking about a governmental system that can print it's own currency and is the reserve currency of the world, so even that is a bit wonky to think about. If the USA fixed it's regulatory health care mess, broke the artificial supply constraints on doctors, made medical devices not have %1000+ profit margins and socialized their healthcare, they would save more GDP than liquidating the US military. Shrinking the financial sector back to its 1950's % of GDP would also pay for the military. Our relatively small software industry is under %2 in 2007.[4] 1. http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financialization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financialization 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_the_United_Stat... 4. http://www.quora.com/What-percentage-of-GDP-is-the-US-software-industry http://www.quora.com/What-percentage-of-GDP-is-the-US-softwa...