Runninglips, please see my post above yours. You may or may not have some other valid points to make but you simply cannot claim that the treasury needs a break due to military spending. It is SOCIAL SPENDING that is bankrupting us.
You are right that social spending is much larger than defense. The problem is, social spending is largely the result of “keeping up with the joneses”. We take the burden from European countries, so they can afford a humongous social welfare state. We watch as they live “fat”, and the population here gets envious. Our military spending is actually driving social spending at a furious rate. Once we have to quit because of financial reasons, the social welfare state will collapse. The problem with that is, the political class will blame the military, and cut it to the bone anyway. When that happens we will be both broke, and unable to defend ourselves. There will be few that will argue for more spending for military, when the dependents are yowling for more food.