US President Donald Trump is asking Congress to boost military spending to $1.5 trillion for 2027, the largest such request in decades, while demanding cuts to domestic spending on social programs, AP reported Friday.
The White House released details of the desired spending increase on Friday as part of Trump’s 2027 budget proposal. The proposal comes amid the US-Israeli war on Iran, which is costing US taxpayers over $11 billon for each week it continues.
Last month, the Pentagon proposed receiving an additional $200 billion to backfill munitions and supplies used in the war, which has killed 3,527 Iranians, including 1,606 civilians and at least 244 children.
While the White House is demanding huge sums for war, Trump’s proposal would reduce non-defense spending by 10 percent, primarily by shifting some responsibility for social programs to state and local governments.
“We’re fighting wars. We can’t take care of day care,” Trump said at a private White House event on Wednesday. “It’s not possible for us to take care of day care, Medicaid, Medicare – all these individual things,” he said. “They can do it on a state basis. You can’t do it on a federal.”
According to AP, “The president’s annual budget more broadly is considered a reflection of the administration’s values,” but does not carry the force of law.
For Trump’s spending proposal to take effect, Congress would have to approve it. The US is already heavily in debt, with the federal government spending nearly $2 trillion more than it receives in tax receipts each year. This year, the national debt surpassed $39 trillion, while the debt-to-Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ratio now exceeds 120 percent, surpassing the peak reached after World War II.
While Trump ran for president on a platform of ending US wars abroad and putting the needs of US citizens first, he has instead prioritized initiating foreign wars in support of Israel’s project to expand its hegemony and territory in West Asia.
The war on Iran is providing a boon to US and Israeli weapons firms, who stand to earn hundreds of billions in additional profits. After meeting with major defense contractors at the White House in early March, Trump said the companies had agreed to quadruple production of “exquisite” and sophisticated defense systems that can repel ballistic missile attacks, such as Patriot missile batteries and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptors.
Each THAAD interceptor missile costs roughly $12.7 million, and each Patriot PAC-3 interceptor costs about $3.7 million. The interceptors have been used in large quantities to intercept Iran’s retaliatory missile and drone attacks on Israel and US bases in the Gulf.
Among the weapons firms that stand to benefit most from the war are RTX (Raytheon), which makes Tomahawk missiles; Boeing, which builds F-15 and Growler warplanes; and Lockheed Martin, which produces F-35 warplanes and Patriot and THAAD interceptors.
Other firms that benefit include Northrop Grumman, which builds B-2 stealth bombers and radar technology; General Dynamics, which produces submarines, bombs, and warheads for missiles; and L3/Harris, which makes solid rocket motors for THAAD missiles and electronics and sensors for reconnaissance aircraft.
US defense stocks have rallied strongly since February 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine. Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza starting on 7 October 2023 provided an additional boost, as did the US and Israeli war on Iran in June of last year and the anticipation of the second US-Israeli war on the Islamic Republic that began in February.
