SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) takes a question from a reporter outside his office at the US Capitol Building on December 3, 2025 in Washington, DC.
(Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
Mike Johnson Touts $901 Billion Military Budget Plan After Gutting Medicaid, SNAP
"At such a time, bipartisan agreement to provide additional funds to the Pentagon would deliver a cruel message to the American public," advocacy groups warned.
Dec 08, 2025
Republican congressional leaders unveiled a sprawling military policy bill late Sunday that would authorize $901 billion in US military spending for the coming fiscal year, just months after GOP lawmakers and President Donald Trump pushed through the largest-ever cuts to Medicaid and federal nutrition assistance.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who aggressively pushed cuts to Medicaid by peddling false claims of large-scale fraud, touted the 3,086-page National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) as legislation that would "ensure our military forces remain the most lethal in the world."
The bill, a compromise between House and Senate versions of the annual legislation, would authorize $8 billion more in US military spending than Trump asked for in his 2026 budget request.
If passed, the 2026 NDAA would pump billions of dollars more into the Pentagon, a cesspool of the kinds of waste, fraud, and abuse that Johnson and other Republicans claim to be targeting when they cut safety net programs, stripping health insurance and food aid from millions. The Pentagon has never passed an independent audit and continues to have "significant fraud exposure," the Government Accountability Office said earlier this year.
"The surge in Pentagon spending stands in sharp contrast to the drastic cuts in healthcare and food assistance programs imposed by the reconciliation package."
Final passage of the NDAA would push total military spending authorized by Congress this year above $1 trillion, including the $150 billion in Pentagon funds included in the Trump-GOP budget law enacted over the summer.
Last month, as Common Dreams reported, a coalition of watchdog and anti-war groups implored Congress not to approve any funding above the originally requested $892.6 billion, warning that additional money for the Pentagon would enable the Trump administration's lawless use of the military in US streets and overseas.
The groups also noted that "the surge in Pentagon spending stands in sharp contrast to the drastic cuts in healthcare and food assistance programs imposed by the reconciliation package."
"At such a time," they wrote in a letter to lawmakers, "bipartisan agreement to provide additional funds to the Pentagon would deliver a cruel message to the American public, one out of step with Democratic messaging over healthcare, reconciliation, and the shutdown."
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Republican congressional leaders unveiled a sprawling military policy bill late Sunday that would authorize $901 billion in US military spending for the coming fiscal year, just months after GOP lawmakers and President Donald Trump pushed through the largest-ever cuts to Medicaid and federal nutrition assistance.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who aggressively pushed cuts to Medicaid by peddling false claims of large-scale fraud, touted the 3,086-page National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) as legislation that would "ensure our military forces remain the most lethal in the world."
The bill, a compromise between House and Senate versions of the annual legislation, would authorize $8 billion more in US military spending than Trump asked for in his 2026 budget request.
If passed, the 2026 NDAA would pump billions of dollars more into the Pentagon, a cesspool of the kinds of waste, fraud, and abuse that Johnson and other Republicans claim to be targeting when they cut safety net programs, stripping health insurance and food aid from millions. The Pentagon has never passed an independent audit and continues to have "significant fraud exposure," the Government Accountability Office said earlier this year.
"The surge in Pentagon spending stands in sharp contrast to the drastic cuts in healthcare and food assistance programs imposed by the reconciliation package."
Final passage of the NDAA would push total military spending authorized by Congress this year above $1 trillion, including the $150 billion in Pentagon funds included in the Trump-GOP budget law enacted over the summer.
Last month, as Common Dreams reported, a coalition of watchdog and anti-war groups implored Congress not to approve any funding above the originally requested $892.6 billion, warning that additional money for the Pentagon would enable the Trump administration's lawless use of the military in US streets and overseas.
The groups also noted that "the surge in Pentagon spending stands in sharp contrast to the drastic cuts in healthcare and food assistance programs imposed by the reconciliation package."
"At such a time," they wrote in a letter to lawmakers, "bipartisan agreement to provide additional funds to the Pentagon would deliver a cruel message to the American public, one out of step with Democratic messaging over healthcare, reconciliation, and the shutdown."
Republican congressional leaders unveiled a sprawling military policy bill late Sunday that would authorize $901 billion in US military spending for the coming fiscal year, just months after GOP lawmakers and President Donald Trump pushed through the largest-ever cuts to Medicaid and federal nutrition assistance.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who aggressively pushed cuts to Medicaid by peddling false claims of large-scale fraud, touted the 3,086-page National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) as legislation that would "ensure our military forces remain the most lethal in the world."
The bill, a compromise between House and Senate versions of the annual legislation, would authorize $8 billion more in US military spending than Trump asked for in his 2026 budget request.
If passed, the 2026 NDAA would pump billions of dollars more into the Pentagon, a cesspool of the kinds of waste, fraud, and abuse that Johnson and other Republicans claim to be targeting when they cut safety net programs, stripping health insurance and food aid from millions. The Pentagon has never passed an independent audit and continues to have "significant fraud exposure," the Government Accountability Office said earlier this year.
"The surge in Pentagon spending stands in sharp contrast to the drastic cuts in healthcare and food assistance programs imposed by the reconciliation package."
Final passage of the NDAA would push total military spending authorized by Congress this year above $1 trillion, including the $150 billion in Pentagon funds included in the Trump-GOP budget law enacted over the summer.
Last month, as Common Dreams reported, a coalition of watchdog and anti-war groups implored Congress not to approve any funding above the originally requested $892.6 billion, warning that additional money for the Pentagon would enable the Trump administration's lawless use of the military in US streets and overseas.
The groups also noted that "the surge in Pentagon spending stands in sharp contrast to the drastic cuts in healthcare and food assistance programs imposed by the reconciliation package."
"At such a time," they wrote in a letter to lawmakers, "bipartisan agreement to provide additional funds to the Pentagon would deliver a cruel message to the American public, one out of step with Democratic messaging over healthcare, reconciliation, and the shutdown."
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.