Health care is the fastest-growing type of federal spending, having risen from 7 percent of the federal budget in 1976 to more than a quarter in fiscal year 2015 as health care costs have risen in the industrialized world.
Make no mistake: The Trump administration’s heartlessness and militarism are costing lives.
The Pentagon misused much of $1 billion in congressionally appropriated COVID-19 relief funding, funneling it mostly to military contractors and using the money to make things like jet engine parts, body armor, and dress uniforms. What could that have paid for instead?
In 2017, 140 million people in the United States were living in poverty or on the verge of poverty using this measure.
With everything changed since 2019, and official poverty measures for 2020 still far in the future, we asked: what has become of the 140 million during the pandemic?
Congress allocates hundreds of billions of dollars to the Pentagon and militarized policing and immigration systems in the name of security, while underinvesting in priorities like health care, medical research and poverty programs that could keep us safe during this crisis.
