Defund the Pentagon
Representative Barbara Lee wants to slash America’s bloated military budget. It’s a necessary move that’s long overdue.

America spends so much on its military when compared to other countries, in fact, that even labelling it “defense” risks making satire obsolete. Photo Sgt. Amy Picard
Just how much does the United States spend on its military? The figures are so vast they can sometimes be difficult to process.
Late last year, for example, President Donald Trump approved a colossal military spending bill totaling some $738 billion — billions more than it would cost to pay the tuition of every college student in the country. That figure, by the way, was just the operating budget for 2020, and 2021’s looks set to be even larger.
Though falling gradually between 2010 and 2015, America’s military spending has continued to balloon since Barack Obama’s final year in office — increasing from $586 billion in 2015 to a whopping $716 billion by 2019. All told, the Congressional Budget Office in 2019 predicted that the United States will spend over $7 trillion on the military over the next decade.