Your comparisons are invalid as usual.
The military protects EVERYBODY, rich and poor alike. How many wars have been fought on American soil, which would drastically upset your video gaming and texting?
Now think about that in the context of every other country, say, in the last 100 years... England, Germany, Japan, Russia, France, Italy.
Still want to gut the military (and yes, I'm sure there's some fat to be trimmed like any govt agency)?
Tax cuts: why are taxes this high in the first place? Actually, I'll partially agree: get ride of tax cuts after you reduce taxes to barely enough to pay for infrastructure and defense.
Social programs are not the govt's responsibility. The fed govt has proven time and time again to be unable to manage ANYTHING effectively and efficiently.
We also spend more that the next 15 highest spending countries on the military...combined.
The question that needs to be asked is; when is enough, enough?
There is no amount of military spending that will ever keep everyone safe.
There's an old and wise saying...when your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. Good gawd people! Study history.
The outright stupidity and gullibility required to accept Carson's response to the question in which he responded that the solution to defeating ISIS was to go into Iraq and defeat them. Where has Ben Carson been? Does he not recall the 10+ years we had troops in Iraq fighting first the Iraqi army, then al qaeda...and then the next group that is sucked into that vacuum of chaos? What magical force is going to sweep into Iraq and result in the Shiite and Suni loving one another? The problems in the middle east are 1500+ years in the making. The idea that we're going to march in and solve the problem defies logic.
Taxes...our taxes are a fraction of what they were during/following WWII. Add the fact that cutting taxes at the same time you're running deficits is not only stupid, it's irresponsible. A couple of years ago I was going through some of my old records, destroying what I didn't need. I found my 1980 tax return. I paid less in taxes in 2000 than in 1980 despite the fact that I had nearly three times the income.
The same people who have wanted to perpetuate war, perpetuate spending war time rations on the military are the same people who don't want to pay for it. In the 1940's we raised taxes to pay for WWII, they stayed high through the 50's and into the early 60's as we paid off that debt. In 1980 we had less than $800 billion in debt...and the conservatives said it was too much. Their solution, cut taxes. 8 years later we had $2.5 trillion in debt. Bill Clinton SLIGHTLY raised taxes and brought the budget into balance and ever ran a surplus. The economy boomed. Of course W rolled back those taxes, got us into wars and our debt has continued to soar ever since. Obama has done nothing to stem the tide.
Social programs...actually the govt has been very effective in stemming the tide of poverty. The level of poverty today and the standard of living for those in poverty is infinitely higher than what existed pre-1964. The issue, and I'm not sure how you ever solve for the fact that poverty is a moving bar by definition. Poverty is defined as X below the mean...unless everyone is the same there will always be people below the mean.
