The TSA is a welfare program for veterans. However, this is America, so we can't just give people money because something something socialism, so we have to give them pretend make-work.
The military is a welfare program for rural America - both via employing/housing/feeding hordes of poorly educated young white men as rank and file, but also employing all the people in the civilian sector who work for companies feeding the military's massive supply chain.
We don't have a draft because we don't quite need one; we just force people into poverty and leave the military as the only escape route.
If we had functioning social service programs, young men and women wouldn't enlist, and we wouldn't have enough "volunteers."
Actual social services are buried in endless red tape, regulations, restrictions, and endless challenges and demands to justify their existence....while the Pentagon will probably never pass an audit and is essentially an open fire hose where one can just say "JERBS!" and everyone is happy.
The farm bill is nearly as bad.
And guess who screams the loudest when coastal states want money for help with public transit, housing, etc? Rural America, which sucks from the teat the hardest.
And guess who the biggest single polluter / largest carbon generator in the world is?
