Budget Matters Blog

Category: Military & Security


Osama's Ghost: The Economics of Overextension

Twenty years of military quagmire of the Middle East has contributed to the fraying of the U.S. economy even as China has rapidly become the new center of global capital accumulation.


Biden's Unconscionable Military Budget

With the Afghanistan War finally ending, we shouldn’t squander our “peace dividend” on costly weapons or military bloat.


Palestinian Lives Matter

We can’t say we support justice and human rights in this country while supporting violence and expulsion abroad.


The Pentagon Increase Is the Size of the Entire CDC Budget

President Biden proposed a Pentagon budget increase larger than the entire discretionary budget of the CDC.


Humanizing the People Police Kill

The standard, often unreliable reporting on police killings dehumanizes victims — a fact my own family knows too well.


Does Biden Put His Money Where His Mouth Is On Climate?

Last week the White House convened a virtual Leaders Summit on Climate with forty leaders from the world's largest economies presenting their plans to meet the goals of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. Now that the dust has settled, what should we make of the new commitments announced at the summit? 


COVID Shrank the Global Economy, but U.S. Military Spending is Still More Than Next 11 Countries Combined

The world spent almost $2 trillion on militaries in 2020, according to the latest data on global military expenditures compiled by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). That's a military spending increase of 2.6 per cent in real terms since 2019, even as global gross domestic product (GDP) shrank by 4.4...


Biden's Pentagon is Still Trump's Pentagon

With his Pentagon budget proposal last week, President Biden made clear his intention to continue in the footsteps of President Trump. The proposal called for an increase in Pentagon and war spending from $740 billion fiscal year 2021 to $753 billion in fiscal year 2022. 


Stop Calling it a "Border Crisis"

People escaping violence have a right to seek safety. If they can’t, that’s the real crisis.


Biden's 2022 budget raises military spending past $750 billion

Today, President Joe Biden unveiled his administration's FY 2022 “skinny budget” request. While not a full breakdown, the “skinny budget” offers a critical glimpse at topline discretionary budget spending and speaks volumes about the administration's priorities. At $753 billion, Biden's requested Pentagon budget increase continues the dangerous and short-sighted path...