I'm not sure that I'd pick "the height of the Cold War arms race" as my desired target for military spending. In that period, it seemed like it was less about "keep our country safe" and more about "make sure the other guys would be glowing brighter than we were once it was all over".
Aside from peak spikes from Korea (1951-52) and Vietnam (1966-68), the rest of the 1950's and 1960's saw spending pretty much within 2% of those peaks. It didn't drop much until the 1970's when spending ended on Vietnam and then was overcut in relation to inflation. Even Reagan never got it much above 5% during another heightened Cold War period.
It's $846 billion for 2019, with revisons coming: https://www.bea.gov/system/files/2020-03/gdp4q19_3rd_0.pdf
Entitlements are mostly earned benefits. Start messing with what people have worked their whole lives for and there will be hell to pay.
I don't know about that. But it seems the government has been spending money for things that we didn't have before, and probably don't need as much as they think we do. Then again, 'twas ever thus.
Sure, they're "earned" in the sense promised...but we're overpromising based on flawed financial assumptions that any 1st Level CFA student or MBA grad could see. Look at the underfunded pension plans.....those promised benefits will NOT be paid. The pols and labor leaders both know it -- but know they won't be around (probably) when th Day of Reckoning hits.
That military spending is the ONLY reason why the deficit doesn't really matter and the dollar is a reserve currency of the world, get rid of the military and become just another country on the block and the deficit will start to matter very quickly. The people advocating taking their spending away really don't understand the true consequences of severely weakening it
Lol or we could actually deal in reality. Essentially every modernized country on the planet has massive debt
Name it then from countries since WW2 or even WW1 and forgiving post war debt doesn't count Also name the countries that have no debt. If you actually look into it you will learn everyone has debt and the world leaders all have massive debt