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I would be curious to see an analysis of this. How much of the USA's military budget goes to things that would normally be done by other institutions in a country like Canada?

Canada doesn't have a VA for example. We just have universal health care.

The GDP comparisons alone may be misleading.

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I don’t know if it’s even possible to tease out this number. The US Army even purchases Skilcraft pens [0] in large part because they are manufactured by the visually impaired. Basically every dollar they spend has multiple purposes.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skilcraft

> The US Army even purchases Skilcraft pens...in large part because they are manufactured by the visually impaired

This is underselling it a little. Skilcraft quite literally would not exist if the federal government weren't required by law to buy supplies from them.

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