In fiscal year 2015, Pentagon and related spending will total $598 billion, accounting for 54 percent of all federal discretionary spending. That's roughly the size of the next seven largest military budgets around the world, combined.
Trump wants $54.6 billion for autonomous weapons systems. Congress should work to defeat this spending proposal, end the war on Iran, and slow the march toward robotic warfare.
Trump's FY 2027 Pentagon budget request includes $95 billion for munitions, which - if passed - would be 20% more than the U.S. Department of Education’s entire 2026 discretionary budget. Each of the missiles the Department of War wants to produce cost millions of taxpayer dollars. To break down the enormity of these per-unit costs, we provide examples of social programs that could be funded for the price of a single PrSM, Tomahawk, and THAAD missile, sourced from the National Priorities Project’s trade-off calculator.
Under the Trump administration, Congress and federal agencies have already committed a total of $268.9 billion in federal funds for immigration enforcement from FY 2025 through FY 2029.
Providing more money to the Pentagon at this time will prolong the war and continue to underfund programs that Americans need and deserve. With so many potential better uses for these funds, there is no excuse for their approval.
