The Congress can’t agree on ensuring Americans have healthcare, other than it should be ruinously expensive if you ever get sick, but they sure can agree on spending a gargantuan sum for war.
From today’s interview with Redacted with Natali and Clayton Morris:
From today’s interview with Redacted with Natali and Clayton Morris:
When we say the Pentagon budget is $901 billion, that’s leaving out an awful lot. For one thing, there was a supplemental passed by the Congress last spring that added $150 billion to the defense bill, including over $100 billion for FY2026. which means that the actual Pentagon budget for 2026 will be over one trillion dollars but that leaves out a heck of a lot as well.
It leaves out tens of billions of dollars that goes to the State department for military assistance to foreign countries as well as to facilitate weapon sales to foreign countries, but the big money comes in two areas where it misses out.
One is for veterans. This year, or in 2026, the veterans budget will be $440 billion. So that’s what you’re paying for men and women like myself, for our health care, our disability pensions, our benefits, etc. All the consequences of political decisions to go to war.
So this idea that these wars don’t ever end, there’s an economic component to it as well. The other aspect about how these decisions [to go to war] don’t end, is in the interest and debt payments on past wars and military spending. So from 2001 to 2021, at the time of the retreat from Afghanistan by the US government, by the American government, the United States had already spent a trillion dollars in interest and debt payments on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. So for those 20 years, we spent a trillion dollars in debt payments to finance those wars. That number is going to reach two trillion dollars by 2030. That’s just for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
When you bring in the larger Pentagon budget over these decades, the estimate is that we spend annually, every year, the United States federal government spends $300 billion on interest payments for past wars and Pentagon spending. So when you put this all together, the Pentagon budget’s not $900 billion. It’s about $1.7 trillion.
It leaves out tens of billions of dollars that goes to the State department for military assistance to foreign countries as well as to facilitate weapon sales to foreign countries, but the big money comes in two areas where it misses out.
One is for veterans. This year, or in 2026, the veterans budget will be $440 billion. So that’s what you’re paying for men and women like myself, for our health care, our disability pensions, our benefits, etc. All the consequences of political decisions to go to war.
So this idea that these wars don’t ever end, there’s an economic component to it as well. The other aspect about how these decisions [to go to war] don’t end, is in the interest and debt payments on past wars and military spending. So from 2001 to 2021, at the time of the retreat from Afghanistan by the US government, by the American government, the United States had already spent a trillion dollars in interest and debt payments on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. So for those 20 years, we spent a trillion dollars in debt payments to finance those wars. That number is going to reach two trillion dollars by 2030. That’s just for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
When you bring in the larger Pentagon budget over these decades, the estimate is that we spend annually, every year, the United States federal government spends $300 billion on interest payments for past wars and Pentagon spending. So when you put this all together, the Pentagon budget’s not $900 billion. It’s about $1.7 trillion.
Keep reading Matt’s Thoughts on War and Peace.