The White House proposal to raise the Pentagon budget to an unprecedented $1.5 trillion is not fiscal policy. It is a moral failure.
The United States already spends more on its military than the next nine countries combined. Yet this proposal demands the largest year-over-year increase since World War II—while slashing investments in healthcare, education, housing, science, and support for the most vulnerable.
As Robert Weissman of Public Citizen rightly called it, this budget is “a moral obscenity.” It reflects a government prepared to mortgage its children’s future to finance endless war.
Former State Department official Josh Paul, who resigned over U.S. arms transfers during Israel’s assault on Gaza, warns that this staggering figure doesn’t even include the costs of the expanding Iran war. Much of this spending will replenish U.S. weapons stockpiles after transferring tens of thousands of bombs abroad—meaning Americans will pay twice: once in arms, and again in debt.
Meanwhile, programs that actually secure the nation—Medicaid, Medicare, childcare, environmental protection, scientific research, and affordable housing—face deep cuts. Even NASA’s science missions are on the chopping block, as space becomes increasingly privatized and militarized.
This is not about national defense. It is about feeding the military-industrial complex while starving the public good.
We are told there is no money for daycare, healthcare, or housing. Yet suddenly, there is limitless money for more jets, more missiles, more submarines, and more wars.
A nation’s budget is a moral document. This one tells us that bombs matter more than babies, weapons more than welfare, and war more than wellbeing.
Congress must reject this proposal—not simply as bad economics, but as a betrayal of American values.
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