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My approach would first be to take a deep dive into our real security needs.  I grant it's in our interest to maintain Japan/South Korea, Australia, western Europe, north America, for trade etc.  How to do that is my question.  Do we need 2nd ID in South Korea?  I lean to thinking not.  How about 3rd MarDiv in Okinawa?  Again, I suspect not, but would defer to more learned people on both.  Do we need 11 carriers and CVBGs?  Do we need to be able to dominate the skies globally?  Can NATO take care of itself?

I look at the deficit and conclude we CANNOT do this indefinitely, one of the larger spending items is defense.  Ergo, we need to spend a lot less.  It's hard choices, and would mean a more isolationist insular foreign policy, which could be a good thing.  Or not.

I'd target cutting defense spending in half.  I know that would be very tough, and it would mean many fewer overseas bases and a much less global military, and we'd still be running a hefty deficit without cutting other things like "entitlements".

An "entitlement" means a thing to which one is entitled.  Your house, your car, SS, insurance payments when needed, etc.

It's the correct term in my view.

No doubt, I'm just looking for places where one COULD in theory cut spending significantly, there aren't many that can be cut much politically.

Those who never paid think of them as entitlements...

You can certainly call it "money stolen by the government and redistributed via socialism" if you wanted.  We'd all know what you meant. 

Assault weapon.

Assault weapon:

Yeah, because if you see me driving that, assault me with a weapon.  Please.  

I don't disagree that we should "look into" where our defense spending is going.  But the real problem is that we could cut defense spending all the way to zero and still only cut the deficit in half.

Entitlements remain the primary issue.

Yep.  Per the Treasury Defense (13%) is only our fifth largest expenditure category behind:

• OASDI, 22%
• Interest, 14%
• Medicare, 14%
• Health, 13%

What level of military/defense spending do you think would be appropriate?  I believe we're currently at around 3.4% of GDP. 

Historically we've asked our NATO allies to spend 2% of GDP on their own defense budget, and at the most recent NATO Summit at The Hague here in 2025, the allies pledged to increase spending to 5%.

I've always said 2% because that is what we ask of our NATO allies.  Since we are at 3.4% now, that would be a cut of ~40%.  However, I don't think we can ask our NATO allies to increase to 5% then say "Ok, good luck with that guys, we are dropping to 2%".  

I suspect that asking NATO for 5% is theatre.  The idea, I assume, is that they can go home and say "We are supposed to spend 5%" then actually spend something like 2.5%.  I'd like ours to be either 2% or whatever our NATO allies are actually doing up to about current levels.  

Your earlier point that we could cut defense to 0.0% and we'd still have a substantial deficit is, I think, the more important point.  If you look at the top four expenditures that I posted above, interest is off the table because we don't want to default so the other three have to be looked at HARD.  

I have no idea how big of an issue this actually is in dollars but the "crazy checks" issue that I've raised before wrt OASDI would be a HIGH priority for me.  The addicts need to get jobs.  This would also help in multiple ways because all the addicts that got kicked off of disability would either have to get jobs in which case they'd not just stop using funds but they'd actually start contributing funds.  

The amount of fraud in Medicare is staggering.  People more knowledgeable than me have commented on various facets of it.  

I assume that "health" mostly means Medicaid but I don't know.  There is a LOT of fraud in Medicaid as well.  Plus there are the lookback periods and the issue of families setting up trusts to be able to claim they are broke and get Nursing Homes paid for.  That would be an extremely complex issue to tackle.