Military spending solves a crucial problem of post - World War II economics of nations.
Since childrearing has improved since World War II, nations in the West have recently replaced Great Wars and Great Depressions by limited wars and limited recessions. The result is that, in America, our real Gross National Product since World War II has jumped by over 30 percent a decade, a prosperity so unprecedented that if it continued unabated it could soon do away with poverty for good. It is an unconscious purpose. An extra billion dollars a day in pleasure would simply be intolerable to our puritanical consciences. It cannot be emphasized too strongly that it was pleasure which was the enemy that Reaganomics was designed td defeat.