Why is Trump Dramatically Increasing The Military Budget?
The Pentagon Can’t Even Pass An Audit
Is America going down the same path as ancient Rome?
In a Truth Social post, President Trump called for increasing the 2027 defense budget to $1.5 trillion, rather than the $1 trillion he pushed earlier.
Estimates suggest this would increase defense spending by $5 trillion through 2035. That means adding $5.8 trillion to the national debt, with interest included.
Trump touts that the substantial revenue being brought in by the tariffs will cover the costs.
He argues tariffs will be enough to cover everything from increased military spending, to rebate payments, to deficit reduction.
Tariffs are Trump’s silver bullets.
But when the numbers are crunched, reality sets in.
Trump’s projected military spending alone would be about twice as large as expected tariff revenue.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated current tariffs would raise $2.5 trillion of additional revenue through 2035, or $3 trillion with interest.
That’s if everything goes smoothly in the topsy-turvy world of Trump’s tariff economy.
“Confronting” The Deep State
Trump promised to confront the Deep State. It helped get him elected. Is dramatically increasing the Pentagon’s funding empowering the Deep State?
Glenn Greenwald called Trump out on what he sees as hypocrisy.
“No denying that Alex Karp, Miriam Adelson, Bill Ackman, Paul Singer, and tech tycoons are getting all they wanted for financing Trump’s campaign,” Greenwald posted on X.
The rich are certainly getting richer on Trump’s watch. Is it America First or the Tech Giants?
“Trump ‘confronting’ the military-industrial complex and Deep State! (by doubling the already bloated Pentagon budget since 2020),” Greenwald continued, driving his point home.
Doubling the Pentagon’s budget since 2020 seems more like giving a drug addict a fix than confronting the Deep State.
Power is the Deep State’s drug of choice, and the Pentagon is a big fat vein waiting for the needle to inject the next dose of big money.
The Pentagon is also a haven for neoconservatives.
According to EBSCO, “Neoconservatism is a political ideology primarily associated with the advocacy of a strong military and an interventionist foreign policy aimed at spreading democratic values globally.”
Is Trump America First or a neocon in disguise?
Can you say Venezuela? How about Cuba? Columbia? Greenland? Gaza?
The Deep State has a long reach.
The Pentagon Fails Another Audit
While Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said Trump’s proposed $1.5 trillion budget would be “a message to the world,” some Democrats thought it was the wrong message.
Why wouldn’t they? Last June, the Department of War told Congress it would be able to successfully account for all of its spending and assets by 2028.
That means the Pentagon won’t be able—or required—to fully account for its spending for years.
It’s like giving a crack addict money and hoping he’ll get clean before blowing the money on more drugs.
Not a safe bet.
The Democrat co-chairs of the Defense Spending Reduction Caucus said the Pentagon should be held to the same budgetary standards as other federal agencies.
That makes sense.
The Democrats punctuated their critique with the fact that the Department of War failed its eighth consecutive audit in December 2025.
“We cannot justify continuing to increase the Pentagon’s budget when the agency cannot even successfully pass a fiscal audit,” they said in a statement.
“The lack of accountability and transparency at the Pentagon is simply unacceptable, yet Congress continues to pour more and more taxpayer dollars into the agency each year. No other federal agency would be allowed to operate this way.”
It’s hard to argue with logic, no matter which side of the aisle it is coming from.
American Rome?
The Roman Empire crumbled because it was overextended, had unsustainable economic policies, and was under pressure from within and without.
Sound familiar?
A key factor in the Roman collapse was excessive military spending.
Another factor was government corruption.
Giving the Pentagon an excessive $1.5 trillion budget and not holding them accountable for it until 2028 is an invitation to corruption.
It appears Trump is putting all his economic eggs in the tariff basket. What happens if the bottom drops out and the eggs are scrambled?
Who will fund Trump’s war machine then?
Trump may not be who he told us he was because he’s acting like somebody else, a tried and true neocon.