Or the government can pay people to build better infrastructure instead.
Also jobs are not really transferable. So all the military people need to be less mad at you than the infrastructure people are now happy with you; otherwise you lose at re-election.
Like you need to figure out what the transition is from using military as an employment welfare to construction as an employment welfare and why the US will stick to that transition at each phase. That's a lot of work; much easier as a politician to not rock that boat.
Just don't delude yourself that "the right" is the Republican parties. Both large political parties in the US are staunchly right-wing parties by most criteria.
> Conservatives and liberals alike agree on job creation programs
No, they do not. I mean, they agree on funding large corporations and the military as though that's a job creation program.