"the US could likely still dominate global firepower rankings at half the current spend"

True, but just winning a war or conflict is not an ideal outcome. Overwhelming advantage not only prevents conflict from occurring, it also assures that casualties are low in even low intensity / regional conflicts.

The US operates on the principle that it must outspend the next 2 countries in military spending. It's an insurance policy in case say, Russia and China team up against the US.

Which is madness, of course. Because spending twice as much doesn't necessarily mean Americans see twice the value. I can easily spend twice as much on a worse car than my neighbor owns.

Education, absolutely.. it'd be a drop in the bucket regarding healthcare, without IP reform.

Some people would disagree with you. I believe military and defense spending should actually be one of the only role of governments. Leave healthcare and education to industry. Let the free market decide the curriculum, teachers salaries, and come up with innovative ways of teaching. I see no reason Khan academy shouldn't be allowed to teach our children. Since when did it become common place to allow a government to come up with a path of study, and make it mandatory to send your kid to for 13 years? As governments slowly accept more and more social programs, the government balloons. Value produced slowly stops representing capital. In germany, where social programs are abundant you get a lot of leeches on the economy. Very long unemployment timeframes, with reltively good pay, Full health coverage, unlimited sick time if you have a doctors note. In a system that can be "gamed", there will be a large amount of people who do so.

I don't believe there are systems that can't be gamed. Given that assumption it's probably better to decide policy based on actual results. In places where social programs are abundant you have fewer suffering individuals, it seems healthier to count that as a win and not get hung up on the (truly rather small) percentage of people potentially gaming the system.

Seems like the comment you're replying to is fine with our system that can be gamed by those at the top but is afraid of gaming by those at the bottom.

I think thats pretty unfair of you and it doesnt seem like thats what they were saying actually