Warmonger Marco Rubio said: “Imagine an Iran that, instead of spending their wealth, billions of dollars, supporting terrorists or weapons, had spent that money helping the people of Iran.”
Pete Hegseth repeated the talking point: “There’s a reason we call Iran the number one state sponsor of terrorism, because they took the money they make and they invest it in tunnels, and they invest it in missiles, and they invest it in launchers and UAVs … instead of investing in their people.”
The irony isn’t lost on anyone. These statements perfectly describe the United States of America.
Following in Biden’s footsteps, Trump has already wasted billions on wars that nobody wanted. Now, he’s asking Congress to raise the military budget to $1.5 trillion for 2027. That’s 44% more than this year’s figure, and would be the biggest increase since the end of World War II.
That extra $441 billion would be used, not to help workers at home, but to end “a whole civilization” abroad—all to prop up US hegemony in the Middle East.
At a private Easter lunch for the elite, Trump said that daycare and healthcare are too expensive: “It’s not possible for us to take care of daycare, Medicaid, Medicare … We have to take care of one thing: military protection. We have to guard the country.” But guard the country from whom? It’s the US military that is raining terror on little children in a far away land.
To pay for more wars, Trump wants to slash domestic programs by 10%, or $73 billion. The budget would totally eliminate the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which spends $4 billion per year subsidizing heating and cooling for the poorest Americans. His proposed cuts include $5 billion from various healthcare programs, $8.5 billion from public schools, and $5 billion from medical research, among other things.
Congress still has to vote on the budget, so it may be rejected. But something has got to give. The US military is losing to Iran, and the government is in a historic debt crisis with ever-mounting interest bills to pay. Trump is right in one way—it’s not possible for the capitalist class to pay for both the military and social services.
The ruling class requires austerity, but cutting $73 billion isn’t nearly enough to balance their books. The US already pays $88 billion in interest on the national debt every month. The total debt is over $39 trillion. Last year, the government spent $1.78 trillion more than it took in, and Trump’s proposed budget would rocket the budget deficit to $2.2 trillion.
To really make a dent, big programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security will need to be slashed. That would be massively unpopular and risk provoking a mass working-class fightback.
Democrats are poised to win in the midterms, so they will be left holding the hot potato. Naturally, they’re not going to touch the military budget either—they represent the same imperialists who need to dominate the Middle East for profits.
Already, more than one in four Americans say they have skipped a medical test, treatment, or follow-up due to the cost. No matter which party of the Epstein class is in power, it’s workers’ lives that will be on the chopping block.