Budget Matters Blog

Category: Military & Security


We Shouldn't Have to Rely on the National Guard for Basic Services

Guard members have stepped up heroically during the pandemic. If we invested in more than just the military, maybe they wouldn’t have to.


The US COMPETES with China — At What Cost?

The House passed a sweeping bill to counter China economically, the America COMPETES Act, with $52 billion for fund the production of computer chips. What else could that pay for?


Will the U.S. Stoke War in Ukraine While the World Burns?

As usual, there are no military solutions, and a heap of other dire problems are being relegated to lower priority status in the meantime. It’s time for the U.S. to evolve - to look for diplomatic solutions, and start to address all of the world’s problems.


From the Climate Crisis to the COVID-19 Pandemic, Our Militarized Budget Fuels Injustice

While climate change fuels migration, the United States hardens its southern border instead of investing in real sources of safety for people in this country and around the world. 


Martin Luther King Jr.’s Internationalist Vision is More Crucial Than Ever

Over 50 years ago, Martin Luther King, Jr., said of the United States in his crucial “Beyond Vietnam” speech that: “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.” If we take King’s words seriously...


A $778 Billion Pentagon Budget is Our Lump of Coal

What if you wanted less child poverty, better health care, more help with child care and elder care, and at least a gesture toward a solution to the climate crisis? And what if instead you got a $778 billion check for war profiteering?


U.S. Military Contracts Totaled $3.4 Trillion Over Ten Years

Source: Chart by National Priorities Project, data from USAspending.gov.  As Democrats negotiate the Build Back Better bill from $3.5 trillion (over ten years) down to $1.75 trillion over ten years, priorities like paid leave, free community college, and Medicare expansion for affordable prescriptions, dental, and vision care are all on...

Three Ways to Cut $1 Trillion from the Pentagon (According to the Congressional Budget Office)

Today the Congressional Budget Office released a new report, “Illustrative Options for National Defense Under a Smaller Defense Budget,” that outlines three different options for cutting funding for the Department of Defense by $1 trillion, or 14 percent, over the next ten years. 


Immigration Cruelty Goes Beyond the Border

Migrants are hit long before they migrate, before they reach the border, and often long after they cross it.


Cut the Pentagon Budget by Ten Percent for FY 2022

This week the House of Representatives is voting on the National Defense Authorization Act, the piece of legislation that sets the nation's military policy, and military budget. And, based on actions taken so far by the House Armed Services Committee, the House is positioned to approve nearly $780 billion in military spending. 

That's unless an effort to pass an amendment co-sponsored by Representative Barbara Lee and Representative Mark Pocan to cut the Pentagon budget by ten percent passes.