Courtesy the Heritage Foundation, via Greg McNeal at The Tank.
I'll try to stay off my soapbox, but two points are worth mentioning. First, as noted by McNeal, is that the primary function of the federal government is to provide for the common defense -- not health care, green initiatives (readers: please don't try to combine global warming projections into security, as some are wont to do. It's lame) and corporate bailouts.
Second, and perhaps more importantly, is the fact that our powerful military exists to prevent a war as much as it exists to win a war. Si vis pacem, para bellum, if you will. One can argue that our strategic nuclear deterrent accomplishes this well enough, but I'm not convinced. I'd rather spend 5%-6% of our GDP on ensuring we never have to suffer through another WWI or WWII. One can argue Vietnam, Iraq, et al... but neither of those conflicts came close to the cost of the major theater level wars -- both in lives and treasure lost.
Back in the day, people ridiculed Reagan's "Peace through strength." When December 1991 rolled around, no one was laughing.
--John Noonan
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