TRADE-OFFS: Senate Republicans Would Increase Spending for Pentagon and Deportations at the Expense of Solving Our Worst Problems

Feb. 11, 2025 - Download PDF Version

Senate Republicans are moving forward with a budget proposal that would spend more on the Pentagon and President Trump’s plans to detain and deport millions of undocumented people.

These plans hurt all Americans, not least because Senate Republicans plan to pay for at least $346 billion in new spending by cutting benefits that people rely on. The Senate’s budget resolution would allow for untold billions in cuts to public education, food stamps, Medicaid, and more.

The Senate proposal includes $150 billion in new Pentagon spending, and at least $175 billion in new spending on detention and deportations over the next four years.

But more spending on war and weapons contractors will just keep the U.S. mired in overseas conflicts, and more spending on deportations and detentions will separate families, uproot communities, and disrupt our economy.

What we need instead is more help for people struggling to get by. That means more spending on basic needs like housing, healthcare, and education - not on war and deportations.

Instead of spending $37.5 billion more on the Pentagon and $43.75 billion more on deportations and detentions each year, we could provide:

Housing security for renters: Affordable housing for every one of the 3.9 million Americans who receive an eviction notice each year (cost: $37.5 billion), AND
Housing for the unhoused: Affordable housing for every one of the 653,000 Americans who experienced homelessness at last count - a record high (cost: $6.3 billion), AND
Treating substance use disorder: Insure and treat the one in five adults with opioid use disorders who have no health insurance (cost: $1.85 billion), AND
Healthcare for children: Provide health insurance for every one of the four million uninsured children in this country (cost: $11.5 billion), AND
Early childcare: Expand Head Start to serve four in five children in poverty versus the current one in three (cost: $24.1 million).

We have the means to solve homelessness, poverty, substance use, and more – but it will require spending priorities that line up with those needs instead of giving more to weapons contractors and demonizing immigrant communities.

Policymakers must step up to defend human needs from harmful cuts and prevent taxpayer dollars from being used to tear families apart while enriching corporations and billionaires at the expense of working people.