I'm going to assume you've heard of the "broken window fallacy" and Eisenhower's speech about defense spending taking away from the hungry, and ask you why the principle doesn't resonate?

"The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter with a half-million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. . . "

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chance_for_Peace_speech

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window