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".

> I don't think the Dems in the US would go for that.

Every non-office-holding Democrat I know would go for it. The problem is that it's political suicide to actually suggest it, because most people don't realize how exorbitant our military spending actually is, so voting for a cut means you go on record as anti-military. That's not an easy rap to beat.

It's one of those downsides to democracy. No one has the power to just do it.