Were I to start eliminating every category of spending that the government is involved in, these would be the last two to go.
Education
National Defense
Why? The national defense column is self explanitory. We all pay in for the common defense, and we're all defended. Yes, this is a communal thing, and the same logic of paying for a common defense could be used to justify any number of socialist agendas, but we do it anyway.
We must be crazy.
The education one column is a little more obscure, but no less vital. Education is an investment in our society. People with education will generate more than just money for our society. They generate ideas. As cruicial as that is, they can also evaluate and debate ideas. Being able to do so, in the context of history and morality, is the cornerstone of our civilization.
Simply stated, our constitutional republic could not exist, and will not endure, without people of sufficient education to know what they're doing. Any 'democracy' formed of uninformed voters can be guarenteed to fail. Our world is far more complicated than when the Founding Fathers started this great experiment, and the we let a great collective ignorance run the show at our own peril.
So, paying for the education of my fellow American seems smart to me. Everything I enjoy and treasure in our society rests on free, informed people making adequate decisions. The military will guard our liberty, but to be informed enough to keep that liberty alive takes time, effort and resources.
If that means I have to contribute resources to provide for the common education, then I'm happy to do so. It provides tangible benefits to me, to my society, and my country. In an ideal world, everyone would pull themselves up by their bootstraps, everyday walk uphill 20 miles in the snow while wearing sandals to get to school, and not rely on anyone else. I have nothing but respect for people that struggled to educate themselves, but that's one thing that we shouldn't make people struggle to do.
If supporting Pell grants is cheating in education spending, than using JDAMs is cheating in defense spending. JDAMs cost more than rifles, and our granddaddies all won wars with rifles. And granddad didn't have no Pell grant, either! Right? Or is it not right at all? Maybe what has changed is that these days, to get the same results as before, we need to apply different methods?