Editor’s notes: The following statement is published on behalf of the Coalition on Human Needs by Deborah Weinstein, CHN’s Executive Director on February 13. 2026.

The U.S. already spends more on the military than the next nine countries combined. Our Pentagon budget has hit $1 trillion; it’s risen 66 percent since 2000. And just this past summer, Congress went outside regular appropriations to lavish another $150 billion on the military, plus many billions more for ICE and Border Patrol agents to militarize – and terrorize – our own communities.

Despite this rampaging growth, President Trump and now House Armed Services Committee Chair Mike Rogers (R-AL) have called for increasing the Pentagon budget to $1.5 trillion, up a whopping 50 percent. This is breathtaking irresponsibility.

Even now, the bloated Pentagon budget is beyond the control of its officials. It has never managed to pass an audit. According to the government watchdog group Project on Government Oversight (POGO), “…roughly two thirds of Pentagon components (63%) cannot properly account for their share of the Department’s $4 trillion in assets.”

There are clear winners and losers in a wildly inflated ask like this: military contractors win and the American public loses. The share of the Pentagon budget paid to corporate contractors has soared from 41 percent in the 1990s to 54 percent for the 2020-2024 period. During this most recent period, five big arms firms got the greatest share of contracts: Lockheed Martin, RTX (Raytheon), Boeing, General Dynamics, and Northrup Grumman. Over the 20-24 period, Lockheed Martin alone received $313 billion. The growing impetus for high tech projects will put tech firms like Palantir in contention to overtake the current giants.

These corporations and about 950 lobbyists who represent them press ceaselessly for more planes, ships, weapons and other equipment whose cost overruns and flaws are famous. The military, awash in equipment it doesn’t need, has provided military vehicles, arms and other equipment to local police departments, with some evidence that the use of this equipment increases civilian harm and fatalities.

Much of what we as taxpayers are buying does not make us safer. In fact, it harms us in many ways. The past summer’s Big Brutal bill was a clear example. More than $300 billion in new funding for the Pentagon and ICE/Department of Homeland Security was paid for out of more than $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid, Medicare, the Affordable Care Act and SNAP nutrition aid. And over decades, growth in military programs has come at the expense of essential domestic priorities. From 2019 to 2025, appropriations for programs including housing, education, child care and Head Start, home energy assistance, public health, environmental clean-ups, services for older Americans and people with disabilities, substance use and mental health treatment and more have declined by 10 percent, taking inflation and population growth into account. During the same period, inflation-adjusted military expenditures have risen.

Families across this nation are struggling to meet their basic needs. Almost half of U.S. workers earn less than the hourly wage needed to afford the rent for a modest one-bedroom apartment. Four million households faced utility disconnects in 2025, up 500,000 from the previous year. Millions are expected to lose health insurance because of cuts inflicted by Congress and the President. Congress needs to respond to these needs, and to say NO to unaccountable Pentagon excess.