Alternate Realities: My Federal Budget

As a huge comic book and science fiction fan, one of the greatest storylines I enjoy is that of an alternate reality, a "What If?" story, if you will.  These stories are designed to make you think about how things might be if just one event in history was changed.  For example, what if Hitler was killed as a child?  What if JFK had not been assassinated?  You get the idea.

So for my first trek into alternate realities, I am going to write the federal budget.  And I am only going to make one small change.  I am going to take my pencil, erase where it says "national defense," and write in "education," and I'll do the same for "education," and write in "national defense."  Just one small adjustment right?  To see what kind of an impact that might have, first you need to see the way the budget is now:

2011 Federal Budget Proposal

As you can see, before my small change, national defense racked up $738 BILLION.  Education racked up an impressive $122 billion.  But not things are different.  Now education will be getting the big bucks.  So what do you think would happen with $738 billion a year?  (Please feel free to post and add on to this list if I forget something:

1) Teachers would get paid what they DESERVE
2) Classes would not be oversized
3) Computers with internet access would be in every classroom
4) Every child would be afforded the opportunity of higher education, regardless of race, gender, or socio-economic status
5) Schools would not be falling apart
6) Americans would once again fall in love with science, art, theater
7) America would once again be competitive around the world economically and technologically
8) Prisons would be much emptier, and small businesses would be much more abundant
9) Inner-city communities would be revitalized like never before
10-250) I'm sure I'm missing - please help me out here

Now the flip side.  This world would be unrealistic because now we are only spending a fraction of what we were on national defense.  What would happen to our military?

1) The size of our military would only be a fraction of its current sizes
2) Many good people would not be able to get a job in the military
3) Bases would have to close around the world
4) We would have many less ships, planes, and tanks
5) We could not afford to keep fighting the War on Terror

But wait, I guess I can think of a few more benefits.

1) We wouldn't need as many jobs in the military because of how many private sector jobs would be available
2) We wouldn't need to fight in so many wars because we would have much smarter diplomats
3) We wouldn't need to worry about so many attacks from other countries because we would have destroyed ignorance

So, do I really think this is possible?  Not any time soon, but hey, food for thought right?