02/07/2026
The budget for the United States military this year is over a trillion — that’s trillion with ‘t’ — dollars. Here’s what that looks like written out: $1,000,000,000,000.
Most of us don’t have personal experience with numbers like that. So, with a big sports weekend coming up, here’s one way to think about how much of our tax dollars are going to the Pentagon:
Retired NFL superstar Tom Brady is getting $37.5 million a year as a commentator for Fox Sports.
That itself is a staggering amount, but even at that rate, it would take Brady 26,667 years to get to $1 trillion.
While many fans think Brady is practically ageless, 26,667 years still seems like just a bit of a stretch.
In 1961, quite famously, outgoing President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us all about the inherent dangers of the military-industrial complex. (And it’s not like Eisenhower was some anti-war radical - he was a five-star general and a key architect of the Allies’ victory in World War II.)
Meanwhile, Donald Trump and his regime seem bent on using military force in truly reckless, self-serving, and unprecedented ways. Possibly on American soil, against American citizens. Possibly to suppress lawful dissent against his regime’s abuses.
So Trump is asking his MAGA sycophants in Congress to increase the Pentagon budget to a mind-boggling $1.5 trillion - 50% more than it was already scheduled to get.
Over the decades, how many times have we heard politicians (from both major parties) claim that the federal government can’t do more to help everyday Americans because “there just isn’t enough money”? How many times have they slashed some critical program citing worn out concerns about “the deficit”?
With the $500 billion extra that Trump wants for the Pentagon, every year, we could fund universal family leave AND provide universal, affordable child care for every kid up to four years old AND end homelessness AND expand Medicare to cover dental, vision, and hearing AND spend $100 billion annually to address the climate crisis ... and still have hundreds of billions left over for other priorities.
Join Public Citizen in a message to every member of Congress:
Our military budget is beyond outrageous already. The Pentagon does not need and does not deserve an additional $500 billion - money that could and should be used to address our nation’s great challenges. The Pentagon has never passed an audit. It is, historically, the greatest source of waste, fraud, and abuse in the entire federal government by far. But even if none of that were true, Donald Trump has made it crystal clear that he does not respect the military, those who sacrifice for their country, or the American people at large. He has made it crystal clear that he will deploy the military irresponsibly and illegally. He has made it crystal clear that he has no qualms about deploying the military domestically, on American soil, against American citizens. Given all of this and more, no representative or senator should vote for even one dollar in additional Pentagon funding.
Thanks for taking action.
https://act.citizen.org/page/93870/petition/1
For peace,
- Robert Weissman & Lisa Gilbert, Co-Presidents of Public Citizen
Donate | Public Citizen | 1600 20th Street NW | Washington DC 20009
Donald Trump and his regime seem bent on using military force in truly reckless, self-serving, and unprecedented ways. Possibly on American soil, against American citizens. Possibly to suppress lawful dissent against his regime’s abuses. So Trump is asking his MAGA sycophants in Congress to increa...
