Government really only has one job, and that is defending us and our territory. Everything else is seconday to its prime directive.
If there is a choice between guns and butter, its guns. We can get our own butter.
We’re used to wars in which our casualties are very light, because in recent decades we’ve always had air superiority. We can march into our enemy’s capital in a few days time with only a handful of losses on our side because we control the air. Lose that, though, and its back to World War One casualty figures, thousands dead in an afternoon.
Why spend money on things like national defense when you can throw it away on “The War On Poverty”?