OtherWords
Lindsay Koshgarian
03/25/2026
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth would rather use your tax dollars to bomb Iranian families than feed American families.
That’s the upshot of news that Hegseth is prepared to request $200 billion in funding for the Pentagon’s new war on Iran. That’s far higher than earlier reports that put the request at $50 billion or $100 billion. And all of these astounding sums would come on top of the $1 trillion already budgeted for the Pentagon, itself a record.
It should be clear: funding this unjust, unpopular, and illegal war comes directly at the expense of ordinary Americans.
Less than a year after the passage of Trump’s signature “Big Beautiful Bill,” which made deep cuts to Medicaid and SNAP — and right in the middle of an affordability crisis — this is the last thing the country needs. That same bill added $150 billion for the Pentagon, pushing the Pentagon budget over $1 trillion for the first time since World War II — and directly enabling the war on Iran.
Half of Americans are struggling to afford basic necessities like food, housing, transportation, and health care. Trump’s Big Bad Bill threatens to take health insurance from 17 million people and some or all food assistance from 4 million people.
The $200 billion that Hegseth now wants for his and Trump’s Iran war could instead feed and care for all of those people — plus medical care for the 1.8 million veterans of the last forever war who still live with disabilities, for an entire year. For good measure, we could also expand Head Start to serve six times as many kids next year — from just over 700,000 to 4.2 million kids — with what’s left over.
What’s more, it comes on the heels of more shocking news about waste at the Pentagon — a problem for generations, but especially under this administration.
