To Stop Endless War in Iran and Beyond, Congress Should Rescind the Money to Fight

As a candidate for president, Donald Trump infamously promised to end endless wars and be the president of peace. In office, President Trump has launched illegal regime change wars in Iran and Venezuela; bombed at least five other countries; threatened war against Cuba, Greenland, Mexico, Panama, and Colombia; and supported Israel’s genocide in Gaza and war in Lebanon.

Despite a two-week ceasefire and diplomatic negotiations with Iran, Trump has deployed thousands of additional troops to the Middle East, while “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth has made renewed threats to attack Iran’s civilian infrastructure, widely considered a war crime. For the next fiscal year, Trump has requested the largest military budget in US history, $1.5 trillion. He has also indicated he will ask for up to $200 billion more to fund the war in Iran. By all indications, Trump looks likely to return to war, if not in Iran, somewhere else.

Trump’s embrace of endless wars already has killed and injured tens of thousands, displaced millions, squandered tens of billions of taxpayer dollars, driven up prices on gas and other necessities, created a global economic crisis, and risked wider catastrophe and World War III. And don’t forget Trump’s genocidal threats to “wipe out” Iranian civilization, implying a potential nuclear attack.

Faced with the threat of more endless war in Iran and beyond, Congress must do everything in its power to stop Trump. One tool Congress hasn’t used is its power to immediately cut off money for wars in Iran and beyond. With constitutional authority over government spending, Congress can use its rescission power—that is, the power to rescind, or take back, money previously appropriated to government agencies. Specifically, Congress should rescind around one-third of this year’s discretionary budgets for the “Department of War” and Department of Energy, where nuclear weapons spending is hidden, while avoiding cuts that would harm military personnel and their families.

While a rescissions bill of this sort may break with congressional precedent, the future of the country and the world is at stake. Extraordinary threats demand extraordinary measures.

Cutting $350 billion in discretionary spending from the over $1 trillion war budgets would actually help protect the troops by making it harder, if not impossible, for Trump to deploy them into harm’s way to fight his wars. While a $350 billion cut may sound daunting, it would leave the country with a total military budget far larger than that of China and Russia combined and allow the military to focus on defending the country rather than squandering billions on endless wars.

While only two Republican Congress members have voted to stop Trump’s war in Iran, Democrats should advance a rescissions bill to continue to apply pressure to end the war in Iran and show they won’t fund another day of endless war. While a rescissions bill is unlikely to pass now, we may soon see more Republicans defecting from Trump’s sinking presidency and increasingly unhinged behavior. While a rescissions bill of this sort may break with congressional precedent, the future of the country and the world is at stake. Extraordinary threats demand extraordinary measures.

Cutting the War Budget Now

Given what we’ve seen from Trump, how can he be trusted to continue to control a military budget that already exceeds $1 trillion? Doing so is to almost literally leave loaded guns in the hands of an increasingly erratic and dangerous man.

The danger Trump poses underlines the desperate need to get Trump out of office as quickly as possible through impeachment or the 25th Amendment. Amid these efforts and continued attempts to pass Iran War Powers Resolutions to prevent Trump from waging war without congressional approval, Congress should help protect the country and the world by removing the funds available to Trump to make more war.

Allowing Donald Trump to continue to control the entirety of this year’s Pentagon budget—let alone a larger one next year—risks his not only continuing his immoral, illegal war in Iran but also his likely launching new wars, including, for example, in Cuba and most frightening of all with China.

Congress has the power to take back money it’s previously appropriated to the Pentagon just as it has passed thousands of rescissions bills to take back all kinds of funding it previously approved.

There are at least three forms a rescissions bill could take. Under each, the bill won’t take pay or services from military personnel or their family members. It will instead take money from weapons makers and others profiting off war and budgets that make the military an offensive, endless war fighting force. A rescissions bill could rescind money for war and:

1. Return the money to citizens in the form of $600 to $1,200 stimulus checks (or a “peace dividend”) and some lowering of the national debt, as military budget expert Stephen Semler has proposed. As Semler says, this proposal could appeal to people across the political spectrum given the longstanding affordability crisis, which has been worsened by the rising price of gas and other necessities thanks to Trump’s new war.

2. Reappropriate—that is, redirect—the funds as a peace dividend to defend people’s daily lives by improving and expanding access to things like Medicare and Medicaid, free school lunches and other food assistance, childcare, affordable housing, and other critical infrastructure.

3. Return the money to the US Treasury to reduce the near $40 trillion national debt.

Importantly, a rescissions bill could reclaim both money not yet obligated—that is, not yet committed to spending—and money that has been obligated. Both offer an opportunity to take money back from some of the hugely expensive, unnecessary, and often world-endangering weapons systems and the war profiteers who make them. This includes funding for new nuclear weapons, the F-35 fighter jet (the world’s most expensive weapons system that has a terrible record of actually being able to fly), its planned sequel F-47, and Trump’s technologically infeasible fantasy “golden dome” missile defense system. A rescissions bill could mandate specific budget cuts or could cut a percentage from all Pentagon and nuclear weapons accounts except those supporting military personnel and their families.

Is It Realistic?

A rescissions bill is unlikely to pass in today’s Congress. To now, only two Republicans have voted for War Powers Resolutions to stop the war in Iran. However, the resolutions failed by just a few votes given the tiny Republican majority in Congress. And we don’t know what Congress will look like in one month or three, when more Republicans may abandon Trump.

Democrats and others shouldn’t be afraid of the tired shibboleth that military spending is about “supporting the troops”—it is increasingly obvious that increasingly large military budgets have made it easier to wage offensive, catastrophic wars of choice that have put troops in harm’s way, causing tens of thousands of troop deaths and hundreds of thousands of injuries, in addition to millions more dead in Afghanistan, Iraq, and far beyond.

A rescissions bill also gives politicians an opportunity to vote “yes” to cut the Pentagon budget; “yes” to a peace dividend; “yes” to using taxpayer money to actually defend the country and improve national security.

Even if a rescissions bill can’t pass now, it can be another way to pressure the administration to end the US-Israeli war in Iran and Lebanon. Along with war powers resolutions, a rescissions bill is another way to demonstrate continuing opposition to this and other endless wars. It’s a way to keep the media focused on a war that’s been all too distant from many people’s lives in the US. It’s a way to do everything humanly possible to stop wars that have already killed and injured tens of thousands and that could exceed the catastrophe of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq if they continue.

A rescissions bill will also allow constituents and journalists to ask Congress members and midterm candidates, “Do you want to fund more endless war or do you think Congress should take money back from the Pentagon to prevent more war and fund things we need? Do you think we can trust Trump with the current Pentagon budget or not? Do you think we can trust that Trump won’t use the out-of-control military budget to restart the war with Iran and start new wars, most terrifyingly a potential nuclear war with China?”

A rescissions bill also gives politicians an opportunity to vote “yes” to cut the Pentagon budget; “yes” to a peace dividend; “yes” to using taxpayer money to actually defend the country and improve national security; “yes” to a rational, realistic, defense-focused military budget rather than a military budget designed for offensive wars.

While Trump has trashed his promise to “stop wars” not start them, Congress has the power to pass a rescissions bill that would protect the country and the world from more endless war while transforming the US military into the defensive force it should be.