I shouldn't have to tell you that "but it's a conservative think tank" is merely ad hominem. If you think Jessica Riedl is misrepresenting the facts, I and many others would appreciate your elaborating. I'm afraid you haven't even read it.

Nonetheless, our ideas about social justice clearly differ. You abhor inequality in itself, I abhor poverty. So perhaps it won't make sense to argue the facts.

I do want to point out also that while it would certainly be good to eliminate unnecessary "defense" spend, it won't be close to enough. By far the biggest sources of deficit are entitlements: social security, Medicare, Medicaid. No one seriously proposes cutting taxes on the wealthy. It might be nice for the sake of fairness (you'd disagree) but unfortunately we will need a painful period of increased tax on everyone paired with serious cost-cutting if we intend to balance the budget... without just printing more dollars, which is basically another tax.