Twisted priorities

George Monbiot in the Guardian has this interesting fact:

when you add together the $368bn for routine spending, the $19bn assigned to the department of energy for new nuclear weapons, the $79bn already passed by Congress to fund the war in Iraq and the $87bn that Bush has just requested to sustain it, you find that the US federal government is now spending as much on war as it is on education, public health, housing, employment, pensions, food aid and welfare put together.

(My emphesis)

You'd expect these sorts of spending priorities from a third-world dictatorship, not a first-world democracy.

So, where is the Libertarian screaming about this? Oh, that's right, I forgot: guns are good, but ensuring that people are fed, clothed, housed, and aren't dropping like flies in messy epidemics is "not a proper function of government".