Pentagon Budget

We Need A Guns And Butter Debate Over The Costs Of The Iran War

May 3, 2026 Michael Hudson, Counter Punch. Educate! Iran, Pentagon Budget, US military, Wars and Militarism

Sixty years ago, opposition to America’s war in Vietnam, a major attack concerned the costs of diverting U.S. resources away from social spending to the military, what was called Guns and Butter. I was the junior member of the Columbia University triumvirate headed by Seymour Melman and Terence McCarthy. We lectured widely, wrote in magazines such as Ramparts and newspapers. The New York Tribune still existed as an alternative to The New York Times, and regularly published our critiques in its interviews and on its editorial pages. Those mid-1960s were the days!

US Caribbean Military Costs Explode: $20 Million Daily

February 17, 2026 TeleSur, Orinoco Tribune. Educate! Pentagon Budget, SouthCom, Trump Administration, US military

US Caribbean military costs have reached staggering levels under the ongoing deployment known as Operation Southern Spear (Lanza del Sur). Recent estimates place daily operational expenses above 20 million dollars at peak periods from mid-November 2025 to mid-January 2026. This massive outlay supports a naval buildup that at times concentrated 20 percent of the U.S. Navy’s surface fleet in the region. The effort projects power while targeting perceived threats to U.S. interests, including drug trafficking and sanctioned regimes. At the core stands the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group.

‘Peace President’ Trump Has Bombed Ten Countries

January 29, 2026 Ben Norton, Geopolitical Economy. Resistance Report Donald Trump, Peace, Pentagon Budget, Wars and Militarism

Donald Trump claims to be a so-called “peace president”, but he has bombed more countries than any other US leader. After proudly renaming the Pentagon from the Department of Defense to the Department of War, Trump now plans to raise the US military budget from $1 trillion to a staggering $1.5 trillion. This means that, if Trump succeeds, the United States will soon spend more on its military than all of the other countries in the world combined, excluding China. This is deeply hypocritical, because in his January 2025 inauguration speech, as he started his second term as US president, Trump declared that he would be a “peacemaker”.

Why Can’t We Commit War Crimes And Destroy The Planet…

December 3, 2025 Lee Camp, Substack. Strategize! Austerity, Economic Security, Pentagon Budget, Wars and Militarism

Sometimes it doesn’t seem like two things are connected. But deep down you know they are. You try to grasp the correlation, but it’s elusive. …I think I’ve found the answer. Why can’t we, the United States, regularly blow up fishermen off the coast of Venezuela — without a judge, jury, or relevant jurisdiction — without 49% of American children languishing in or near poverty?? Why can’t we send tens of billions of dollars to help Israel commit genocide while also having affordable housing for Americans? Rather than the monthly mortgage payment on a typical home doubling since January 2020?

Pentagon And Military-Related Spending In Congressional Bill HR1

October 31, 2025 Costs of War Project, Brown University. Educate! Congress, Military Industrial Complex, military spending, Pentagon Budget

It is unusual for reconciliation bills, such as H.R. 1, to include substantial funding for the Department of Defense or other military-related programs in other departments. However, H.R. 1 breaks from precedent by allocating $156 billion to “national defense.” This is problematic for four main reasons: (1) It benefits weapons-makers and contractors more than service members; (2) It lacks details on specific spending categories, effectively making it a slush fund; (3) It incentivizes future lawmakers to skirt the regular budget process, which is more deliberative and transparent than the reconciliation process; and (4) It increases Pentagon and military-related spending by over 13 percent from FY25, pushing “national defense” spending beyond the $1 trillion mark.

Senate Advances Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’, Includes $150 Billion For Military

July 2, 2025 Dave DeCamp, AntiWar.com. Educate! Big Beautiful Bill, Congress, Pentagon Budget, Trump Administration, US Imperialism, Wars and Militarism

The Senate on Tuesday advanced a massive spending package, dubbed the “Big Beautiful Bill” by President Trump, that includes $150 billion in extra military spending. The bill passed in a vote of 51-50, with Vice President JD Vance casting the tie-breaking vote, as three Republicans — Senators Rand Paul (KY), Susan Collins (ME), and Thom Tillis (NC) — joined Democrats in voting against the sprawling piece of legislation. House GOP leaders have scheduled a vote for the bill on Wednesday and are hoping to get it to President Trump’s desk by this Friday, though uncertainty remains about how fast it will get through the chamber.

Why Does ‘National Security’ Always Mean More War, Not More Health Care?

April 14, 2025 Katerina Canyon, Truthout. Educate! Health Care, Pentagon Budget, US Imperialism, Wars and Militarism

On March 17, 2025, DefenseScoop reported that Congress approved $141 billion for Pentagon research and development — an amount larger than the budgets of most federal agencies, and close to the size of the seven next largest military budgets around the world. Yet, as usual, there was little debate. Instead, military leaders and lawmakers lamented that the figure was $7 billion less than last year due to budget caps set under the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023, as if anything short of perpetual increases is a crisis. Meanwhile, how many times have we heard that there’s no money for universal pre-K? That expanding Medicare is too expensive? That raising the minimum wage would hurt the economy?

Mexico’s Leftist President Rips Trump Tariff Threat

November 27, 2024 Jake Johnson, Common Dreams. Educate! Donald Trump, Mexico, Pentagon Budget, Tariffs, US Foreign Policy

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum on Tuesday sharply criticized U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's threat to impose a 25% tariff on all imported goods from Canada and Mexico, calling the proposal a potentially disastrous distraction from meaningful solutions to drug trafficking and mass migration. "Migration and drug consumption in the United States cannot be addressed through threats or tariffs," Sheinbaum, a member of Mexico's leftist Morena party, wrote in a letter to Trump. "What is needed is cooperation and mutual understanding to tackle these significant challenges."

There’s No Good Reason To Spend Nearly $1 Trillion On Our Military

July 20, 2024 Lindsay Koshgarian, In These Times. Educate! Finance and the Economy, Pentagon Budget, US Imperialism, Wars and Militarism

If you looked at the U.S. military budget without knowing otherwise, you’d probably guess we were in the midst of World War III. Our military spending is now the highest it’s been at any point since World War II — and Congress keeps adding more. The GOP-led House of Representatives just passed legislation that will increase military spending to $895 billion, while the Senate Armed Services Committee passed a bill that would total $923 billion. Those totals don’t even include the military aid to Ukraine and Israel that was included in the $95 billion war package Congress passed this spring. We’re teetering closer and closer to a $1 trillion military budget.

The Military-Industrial Complex Is Killing Us All

June 3, 2024 David Vine and Theresa (Isa) Arriola, TomDispatch.com. Educate! Military Industrial Complex, Pentagon Budget, US Imperialism, Wars and Militarism

We need to talk about what bombs do in war. Bombs shred flesh. Bombs shatter bones. Bombs dismember. Bombs cause brains, lungs, and other organs to shake so violently they bleed, rupture, and cease functioning. Bombs injure. Bombs kill. Bombs destroy. Bombs also make people rich. When a bomb explodes, someone profits. And when someone profits, bombs claim more unseen victims. Every dollar spent on a bomb is a dollar not spent saving a life from a preventable death, a dollar not spent curing cancer, a dollar not spent educating children. That’s why, so long ago, retired five-star general and President Dwight D. Eisenhower rightly called spending on bombs and all things military a “theft.”

The ‘Ghost Budget’: How America Pays For Endless War

January 8, 2024 Linda Bilmes, Scheer Post. Educate! Debt, Pentagon Budget, Taxes, US Imperialism, Wars and Militarism

The post-9/11 wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were enabled by a historically unprecedented combination of budgetary procedures and financing methods. Unlike all previous U.S. wars, the post-9/11 wars were funded without higher taxes or non-war budget cuts, and through a separate budget. This set of circumstances – one that I have termed the “Ghost Budget” – enabled successive administrations to prosecute the wars with limited congressional oversight and minimal transparency and public debate. I adopted the name “Ghost Budget” because the term “ghost” appeared frequently in post-9/11 government reports in reference to funds allocated to people, places, or projects that turned out to be phantoms.

The Deadly Influence Of The Military Industrial Complex At COP28

December 18, 2023 Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG. Podcast - Clearing The FOG climate crisis, COP28, NATO, Pentagon Budget, Wars and Militarism

We hear about the growing influence of fossil fuel, nuclear and Big Agriculture corporations over the United Nations' Conference of Parties (COP) meetings, but hardly anything about the presence of weapons makers and NATO leaders. Clearing the FOG speaks with Canadian environmental lawyer and peace activist Tamara Lorincz, who reports about the meetings and outcomes of the recently-concluded COP28. She is part of an organizing effort to highlight the carbon footprint of Western militaries and the significant contributions of NATO countries to the climate crisis. Lorincz points out the great discrepancies between what Western countries spend each year on their militaries (hundreds of billions of dollars) and what they are willing to contribute to the climate change fund (tens of millions of dollars) for reparations and relief in impacted nations.

Senate Passes Massive $886 Billion National Defense Authorization Act

December 15, 2023 Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com. Educate! Congress, NDAA, Pentagon, Pentagon Budget, Senate, Wars and Militarism

On Wednesday, the Senate passed the mammoth $886 billion 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which funds the Pentagon and military spending in other government agencies. The bill passed in a vote of 87-13, with six Democrats, six Republicans, and one Independent voting against it. This NDAA now heads to the House, where it’s expected to pass in a vote on Thursday as the bill is the version that the two chambers negotiated. The NDAA includes an amendment to extend Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which gives the FBI the power to conduct warrantless spying of foreign targets and Americans they interact with.

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