I think this is what people don't get about US military spending. From the moment you wake up every single day you are directly benefiting from it as an American. The fact that you, as a normal middle class person, are able to step out of your brand new house purchased with a no money down 30 year mortgage, step into a brand new car you don't own that's financed at 2%, drive to a brand new shiny shopping mall, and buy brand new fancy $200 t-shirts at the shopping mall on your no-limit 0% credit card is because of the fiat-reserve currency system setup by the US fed, and defended by the military.
https://inequality.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/media/_m...
Analysis in this paper also based on Census data.
Also, I don't know that I would exactly declare victory on poverty rate based on just recent data. It looks like we've just fought it to a rough standstill from the 70's on, which is disappointing from an advancement of civilization point of view. The 2010 decrease was just getting it back to 1970's level poverty after an increase bubbled up post-2008.
https://poverty.ucdavis.edu/faq/what-current-poverty-rate-un...
Note the rise in the below 50% poverty level figure in the chart.
In fact I'd argue this is exactly what's happening. The people who are willing and able to move out of impoverished regions to the coastal megacities are doing much, much better now than they were 10 years ago. But the ones who have stayed are sinking deeper and deeper into poverty as the economy completely shifts focus.
That is just simply not true. The largest part of the US budget is ~1.25 trillion USD spent on Social Security and Unemployment, after that it's ~1 trillion on Medicare & Medicade, and ~600 billion on Defense.
Make no mistake the US spends wayyyy too much on the military, but it's not #1
what do you mean by "largest portion" here?