If you want to balance personal liberties with reducing government spending, why not implement a large(r) federal tax on cigarettes which is refunded at tax time if you’re not a Medicaid recipient?
The US doesn’t spend a particularly interesting percentage of their GDP on defense budget at a global scale.
Yes I do, it's comparable to SS and Medicaid/Medicare. Before WWI and WWII, we hardly carried a standing military.
>The US doesn’t spend a particularly interesting percentage of their GDP on defense budget at a global scale.
That's true but you aren't mentioning total spend. The total spend numbers paint a different picture. How much military spending at the expense of domestic wellness do we need?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_...