This week, compromise text for the FY 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) was released, and House and Senate votes are imminent. 

Among many other things, this bill paves the way for the first $1-trillion war budget since World War II, by authorizing more than $900 billion in military spending on top of the $156 billion approved by Congress earlier this year.

"The last thing Congress should do is deliver $1 trillion into the hands of Secretary Pete Hegseth. Under Secretary Hegseth's leadership, the Pentagon has killed unidentified boaters in the Caribbean, sent the National Guard to occupy peaceful U.S. cities, and driven a destructive and divisive anti-diversity agenda in the miltiary," said Lindsay Koshgarian, Program Director of the National Priorities Project at the Institute for Policy Studies. 

National Priorities Project has previously shown what $1 trillion could do for the country: from ending the nursing shortage to insuring uninsured children, preventing evictions, and replacing lead pipes, every dollar the Pentagon wastes is a dollar that isn't helping Americans get by. 

The current bill adds an additional $8 billion in funding the Trump administration didn't ask for. That would be more than enough to restore SNAP benefits to the 2.4 million people expected to go hungry due to new SNAP work requirements that have already taken effect.