How the Military-Industrial Complex Gets Its Power and Harms Workers, in 6 Graphs
The military-industrial complex generates death and destruction abroad while also harming workers at home: it funds politicians and think tanks, siphons off money from pro-worker programs, and turns the public coffers into a slush fund for war profiteering.
M1A2 Abrams tanks stand on the grounds of the First Brigade of the Third Infantry Division (Raider Brigade) during a visit by the German president to US forces in Grafenwoehr, Bavaria, Germany. (Daniel Karmann / Picture Alliance via Getty Images)
Joe Biden has delivered the opposite of a peace dividend in 2022. Despite the US withdrawal from Afghanistan — and despite Biden’s vows to enact a sweeping domestic agenda — US military spending has increased and social spending has dropped compared to the last two years. Of the $4.1 trillion Biden proposed last year for climate, health, and other social spending over the next decade, less than one quarter has materialized so far — just $987 billion over ten years. Meanwhile, the Pentagon is on track to grab that amount in one year by the end of Biden’s term.
Rather than chart a new path after the massive military outlays of Donald Trump’s administration, Biden has followed his predecessor’s lead. The Trump-Biden military buildup is so dramatic it puts Ronald Reagan’s legendary spending spree in the 1980s — which retriggered the arms race between the US and Soviet Union — to shame. On average, annual military budgets in the Trump-Biden era have been $220 billion higher than under Reagan.
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