The Pentagon’s Secret Budget

Advocates for increased military spending will likely insist that more money is always needed, no matter today’s true total. That these Pentagon boosters have cited incorrect figures and helped mislead the public for decades raises serious questions about their credibility and the basis for their seemingly endless demands for more money.

Thankfully, there’s growing resistance to Trump’s proposals. Nearly 6 in 10 people nationwide believe even the official $1.5 trillion request is “too high,” according to a recent poll conducted by ReThink Media and the Costs of War Project at Brown University, a nonpartisan research group (where I’m a contributor). And Democrats appear to be listening: They’ve voted against Trump’s budget in unprecedented numbers as it winds through Congress. Some Republicans have also expressed concerns about supporting Trump’s proposal given fears about the rising national debt.

There are growing calls to cut the Pentagon budget by hundreds of billions of dollars without touching salaries and benefits for troops and veterans. This would still leave the country with the world’s largest military budget by far and allow Congress to reallocate the savings to programs that improve the lives of everyday Americans.

The public needs a full, accurate accounting of the military. Congress could provide an annual True Total Military Budget that tallies all of the Pentagon’s spending in one place and stop hiding funding in other agencies’ budgets. Until this happens, journalists and analysts can help by explaining the full scale of spending and no longer repeating incomplete totals.

As Trump asks for the highest military budget in the history of the world and people continue to suffer the effects of his war with Iran — which has killed and injured thousands, increased the price of gas and groceries, and risks even greater catastrophic harm globally — it’s time to have an informed debate about how much the country really needs to spend on its military.

David Vine (DavidVine.net) is a political anthropologist and the author of a trilogy of books about war and peace including “The United States of War: A Global History of America’s Endless Conflicts, from Columbus to the Islamic State.”