Well, lets start with the tank. Sure, a million dollar tank generates a lot of economic activity, research, workers, factories, etc. But when its all over, you get a tank than wears out in a few years from wear and tear or obsolescence, or is taken out by enemy action. Sure, I'm no pacifist, I know it would be a false economy to spend nothing on defense; but how much, where and how, is certainly a non-trivial problem, and one that should never be left to those whose business is building tanks. For them, we'll never have enough.

Now if you get that same million dollars and build tractors, or trucks, or some other domestic product, those machines are used here in this country building roads, or growing crops or hauling freight, which creates even more wealth and benefit than just the money paid to the people who built them. A truck or farm machinery (or a school or a post office or a road) continues working and earning long after it is paid for. It is a wealth-producing engine. An Abrams MBT or a Bradley Fighting Vehicle is not.

Sure, not every product I buy is made in the US. Why should that be? Maybe its at least partly because it is more profitable for American business to market foreign products than to produce domestic ones. Is that my fault? No one consulted me.

I do what the free market tells me do, buy the best for the cheapest. It's what I'm always being told to do by the free marketeers, who always have my and the nation's best interest at heart, right? Why should I buy a Detroit car if Detroit refuses to buy Pittsburgh steel?

Yeah, I've always been suspicious of that calculus that claims "every dollar spent on X is multiplied 7 times in our economy, creating more jobs all along the line". I never accepted that at face value either, although there may be some truth to it. But is the coefficient really 7? I suspect its more like 2.15719.

But when a jet fighter costs more than all a whole county's high schools, and chances are it will fly for its entire useful life burning fuel and dropping bombs in training exercises before it is junked as obsolete, then maybe that is a waste.

As for the money and health care those old farts get when they live too many unproductive years, maybe the correct engineering analysis is that they're better off dead so their maintenance money can be spent on something more useful--like consumer electronics, or executive bonuses.

You could say the same about veteran's benefits. Hell, they're too old to fight anymore, why should we be lavishing so many tax dollars on them?

Like I said: I'm willing to give up part of my pensions for the good of the country. I've always felt paying taxes was a distasteful but essential part of my duty as a citizen. It is the patriotic thing to do. But why should the rich get a tax break and the military spend more than all our potential enemies combined,
while I'm doing all the patriotic sacrificing? NFW. It ain't gonna happen.

And that's not a trivial problem at all.