Pentagon Spending

Threatening our nation’s credit to extract policy concessions is an irresponsible political gambit with far-reaching consequences. If lawmakers are genuinely concerned about reining in federal spending, there are better places to put energy than the debt ceiling debate. Instead, they might look to the Pentagon.

With bipartisan support, lawmakers are set to approve $858 billion for the Department of Defense and related activities in this year’s defense policy bill, known as the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

Congress is set to pass the largest Pentagon budget in history.

Bad news: Pentagon spending is up. Good news: your advocacy to counter endless warfare is having an impact. Here are eight signs of progress in the 2023 NDAA.

If the Pentagon and weapons contractors can get their $24 billion wish list for weapons and war—in addition to the $813 billion that President Biden already requested for the Pentagon in FY 2023—then the American people deserve an opportunity to get their unfunded needs met as well. This year’s People’s Unfunded Priorities List highlights five key areas.

Today, the president is expected to sign into law a giant spending package to fund government operations for the rest of fiscal year 2022. The legislation, which places President Joe Biden’s first stamp on the federal budget, will boost Pentagon spending to $782 billion.

In a new study, Salih Booker of the Center for International Policy and Diana Ohlbaum of the Friends Committee on National Legislation explain how the current, militarized U.S. approach to “national security” perpetuates racism and causes immense harm to people of color at home and abroad.

In this interview, I asked Randall about efforts to cut (or at least reduce the rate of growth of) the United States defense budget, which exceeds $750 billion annually, even though other challenges to national security—climate change and pandemic disease, to name just two—loom large.

On Sept. 1, members of the House Armed Services Committee voted 42-17 to boost the Pentagon budget by $23.9 billion above the president’s original request, bringing total Pentagon spending to $740 billion.

If deterrence is synonymous with dominance, no amount of military spending will ever be enough.