Re: While I'm asking questions ...
Military spending significantly influences the U.S. economy.
Indeed. It hides the USA's social welfare programmes, which subsidises private industry's unwillingness to invest or train their staff.
Can't afford college? Join the military and they'll put you through a degree.1
Become a signaller and get stacked with your <Vendor> networking certs ready for a career in the private sector. We can't expect private enterprise to train their staff or pay for CPD after all.
Just don't join the infantry.
Plus, lifetime socialised healthcare through the VA!
Service means citizenship!
1. Success may very with trade and branch
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Of course, the US could spend that military budget direct on education and healthcare. There's no real need to make people join a bloated military as salaried personnel to access those opportunities. They could work as productive private sector workers and still access those benefits, reducing cost to the taxpayer. Or we could spend it on infrastructure, by hook or by crook. A canny president - recognising the need for better rail connectivity across the US for freight and passengers - could order the Army Corp of Engineers to design and start construction on such a network for defence purposes, in the same way they manage other - dubiously military - civil engineering projects like Mississippi flood control. The fact that those lines would then be predominantly used by civilian Amtrak services, making use of free space when the military aren't shifting materiel - would be a complete coincidence.
This would all benefit the US economy (because public spending makes the private sector work - since all money ultimately comes from the government/Fed, unless it's counterfeit!). It doesn't need to be military to benefit the economy. Infrastructure, healthcare and transport would also work.