Often enough I hear people say that it’s good to spend that much on our military. “That way no one will mess with us.” That logic hurts my brain. We spend more than the next TEN countries combined. We could halve our budget and still have a ridiculously large military.
We argue about the cost of a stadium (rightfully), then pay them off for 25+ years, and those cost ONE billion (versus $880 billion). An annual per Capita hit of $2,200 is crazy.
Also, we don’t even use a significant portion of the equipment that we build. There are thousands of tanks just collecting dust. “But they create jobs.” Build something else. Schools, parks, trains, housing, etc.