I think the main issue there is that all of those "positives" you support cost a lot of money to do well...more than would even be saved by knocking off 3/4 of

I think the main issue there is that all of those "positives" you support cost a lot of money to do well...more than would even be saved by knocking off 3/4 of the military budget. No matter how you cut it, "taxes fund civilization". All of those things you want the nation to fund collectively (and I agree that many things are vastly more efficient to fund collectively) require taxing and then spending said tax revenues. I'm not disagreeing or trying to be pedantic. I actually agree that there are adjustments that ought to be made to the overall national budget including less expenditure on military infrastructure and elective military campaigns. But I think the whole "but not tax and spend" thing is a cliche at this point because everyone has different priorities and opinions on what counts as "important" and what constitutes wasteful "tax and spend".