A common conceit in these arguments is that you have sole ownership to "what a government is for." Which implicitly denies the opposite argument without addressing it, and attempts to legitimize your own. But social service outlays are absolutely, incontrovertibly a huge & increasing reason for the deficit. All the doge/ Trump/project 2025 cuts have paled in the face of the absolute juggernaut that is domestic spending. And then you realize that state govts spend as much money as the federal govt, while having absolutely no defense budget at all.

For you to deny that social spending is problem (especially for what it does buy) totally denigrates you and your position.

I don't have a basis for evaluating that calculation. I'll point out that their methodology seems to rely on taking various estimates of per-day costs then multiplying things out. It also relies on per-campaign costs from prior conflicts and turns them into per-day costs. I don't think you can do that in an intermittent war that has no boots on the ground.

Regardless, the federal government's job is, in fact, to bomb hostile countries that threaten shipping lanes. That's the federal government's actual job, not social welfare. I agree that we mistakenly precipitated the situation that now threatens the shipping lanes, but we are where we are. And it's not like that dry firewood wasn't already there.

I also don't understand the emotionalism of "fellow citizens." "American" is a label for a group of consumers living within a defined border, who want to get their oil and foreign goods shipped to that location. It's even more clear today that keeping shipping lanes open is the federal government's core responsibility than it was in 1789.

> It’s about the whole military budget.

I also thought that the military budget was too big... in 1998. But in 2026, Europe is raising defense spending targets to 3.5% of GDP, which is more than what the U.S. spends: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyz4nq91wpo

It turns out that, if the U.S. isn't willing to guarantee your security, you have to spend 3-5% of GDP on defense (just like Europe used to do before 1990). As the U.S. loses hegemony and we move to a multi-polar world, everyone's military budgets will go up.

You have me confused with someone else. This was me 3 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47986799

> If American foreign policy was rational, we wouldn’t have been involved in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and now Iran. Not to mention Somalia, Kosovo, and Libya, and countless minor skirmishes. We’ve been throwing kids into the meat grinder for 75 years, and lighting dollars on fire, for no good reason. There’s no reason for us to light money on fire having bases all over the world, when we have two huge oceans to protect us.