The point is that Congress has the authority to raise an army/navy via the Constitution. The same cannot be said for Medicaid or any form of welfare that I’m aware of. Many of us “conservatives” believe giving people money for years does more harm to them long term than good.
It isn’t semantics. Military spending is codified in the Constitution. Welfare is not.
Like I said, we could probably cut military spending in the future by streamlining our branches; however, there are serious issues with certain weapons systems and huge overlays with replacements (Ex. F/A-18 & the F-35).
Healthcare costs increase in countries with socialized healthcare too. They are just paid for in a different way. I have said this many times on here before, trying to compare what other countries do (like Finland or Canada) is extremely difficult to damn near impossible. There is simply too much noise. For example, most of the countries with socialized healthcare would struggle to control prices if we didn’t subsidize their national security via NATO. Another country, Finland, is often cited as proof we can do it. Finland’s population is half of the size of the estimated illegal immigrant population of the U.S. that can obtain care for free (i.e. paid for by tax dollars) at area hospitals.
I wrote this a while back:
Here’s another to the point above: