Veterans

Thanks to us, much of the world receives a subsidized defense. I read an article in the bimonthly magazine "Foreign Affairs" a few months back stating that Germany and Japan only spend 1.8% and 1% of their GDP respectively on their defense/war budgets. Meanwhile, the US spends about 4.8% of its GDP on defense.

Could you imagine the funding that could be shifted to other areas of importance if we could cut our defense spending to 1.8% or 1% of our GDP? Perhaps I'm expressing a new libertarian streak here, but I fully believe that our money and priorities would be better spent on ourselves then on protecting other nations.