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cost of living
While Cost of Living Soars and Healthcare Taken Away, Trump Spending $1 Billion Per Day in War of Choice With Iran
"We can't afford to keep our hospitals open, but we can afford a billion dollars a day to bomb Iran?"
Mar 05, 2026
With fresh reporting that the ongoing US assault on Iran could be costing $1 billion per day in taxpayer money, opposition lawmakers, candidates for office, and outside critics are ripping the Trump administration and his allies in Congress for the financial recklessness of the unlawful and unprovoked attack on the Iranian people.
"We can't afford to keep our hospitals open, but we can afford a billion dollars a day to bomb Iran?" asked Graham Platner, a Democrat running to unseat Republican Sen. Susan Collin of Maine in this year's midterm elections, in a social media post Wednesday.
Hundreds of hospitals across the US, most of them in rural areas, are teetering on the brink of bankruptcy or closure in the wake of Trump's signing of a spending and tax giveaway bill last year that gave billions in tax breaks to corporations and the wealthy while slashing healthcare, including Medicaid.
Collins on Wednesday joined all but one member of the Republican caucus in the US Senate to vote down a War Powers Resolution that would have compelled Trump to cease military operations against Iran.
"In one fucking month we will spend more over there than we needed to save healthcare for more than 2 million Americans. They literally are taking away your food and your healthcare for this regime change war of choice." —Sen. Brian Schatz
Planter was responding to journalist Nancy Youssef of The Atlantic, who reported, citing a congressional official, that a "preliminary Pentagon cost estimate of the war in Iran is $1 billion a day."
Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) expressed similar outrage to the figure.
"This war is costing a billion dollars a day," said Schatz. "In one fucking month we will spend more over there than we needed to save healthcare for more than 2 million Americans. They literally are taking away your food and your healthcare for this regime change war of choice."
An analysis by Allison McManus at the Center for American Progress published Tuesday estimates that the US costs since bombing raids were launched by the American and Israeli forces over the weekend easily exceed $5 billion. According to McManus:
In a March 2 press conference, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine provided a glimpse into the nature of operations thus far in Operation Epic Fury. Caine described the deployment of more than 100 aircraft, the use of Tomahawk missiles, and attacks on more than 1,000 targets in just the first day of operations. Utilizing Brown University’s “Costs of War” project cost estimates of previous operations in the region—including Operation Midnight Hammer against Iran last June and engaging the Houthis in Yemen—it is likely that the operations Caine described alone would cost more than $4 billion.
But these are not the only costs. Elaine McCusker, a former Pentagon official in the first Trump administration, estimated the costs of repositioning forces in the Middle East to be around $630 million even prior to the start of hostilities. On March 2, Kuwaiti forces accidentally shot down three F-15 fighter jets in a friendly-fire incident. As these aircraft can cost as much as $117 million, this translates to an estimated total loss of $351 million. Added to the operations Caine described, a conservative estimate for the initial costs of Operation Epic Fury is more than $5 billion as of March 2—and the campaign is just getting started.
McManus further notes that the billions in military spending for a war that polls show a large majority in the US oppose, "come at a time when American citizens are acutely feeling the pressures of increased prices at home, including housing, energy, and health care costs."
As independent journalist Zaid Jilani noted, "Trump is spending a billion dollars a day killing people abroad while cutting Medicaid and health care for Americans."
"Waging a senseless and costly war raises legitimate questions about this government’s priorities," argues McManus in her analysis. "Priced at around $2.2 million, a single Tomahawk missile could cover 775 children on Medicaid for a year or provide more than 3,600 children with meals in the National School Lunch Program. At more than $5 billion and counting, the costs of Operation Epic Fury—in only its first few days of operations—could cover Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits for more than 2 million Americans for a year. If this war continues at the same pace, Americans could see their government burn through tens of billions of dollars, funds that would amount to the cost of Medicaid for millions in the United States."
John Collins, political writer based in Boston, was contemplative about the military expenditures. "Just thinking of what we could do with a billion dollars a day that doesn’t include bombing people," Collins said.
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Trump's Policies Are Making It Harder for the So-Called Middle Class to Make Ends Meet
As life becomes less and less affordable for working people, we need to restore and expand our social safety net so those of us who work for a living can keep our families affordably housed, fed, and healthy.
Feb 21, 2026
Affordability is a crisis that keeps millions of us awake at night. It is not, as President Donald Trump claims, a word Democrats “made up.” As more and more families struggle to pay their bills, we need policy solutions, not partisan deflections.
By most accounts, my family is middle class. I have a leadership position at a nonprofit organization, a modest house with a mortgage, student loans, and a car. But like countless other working Americans, I’m struggling to afford the basics.
I’m supposed to be saving for retirement, but instead I’m scouring the internet for “free sites”—mutual aid groups or neighborhood sites where people safely drop off their groceries, clothes, and basic appliances for others to take. In desperation, I even accept open juice cartons and past-date food from my community so I can feed my family as the cost of these items continues to rise.
I’ve lived on the edge of uncertainty all my life. My parents struggled to provide for their three kids when we were growing up. Sufficient medical care was always out of reach. As I grew older, I learned to be super resourceful and did my best to “pull myself up by my bootstraps.”
You simply can’t pay your mortgage with someone else’s stock gains.
But even after I earned a Master’s degree and bought a small townhouse, it wasn’t enough. The cost of babies and childcare is overwhelming when one is struggling to make ends meet. Add health complications from childbirth on top of it, and we were immediately under water.
Getting help from the social safety net has always been harder than it should be. Years ago, before I had kids, I needed help affording food and housing while I searched for new employment after getting laid off. But because I had a car and no kids, I was told I was ineligible.
But that’s nothing compared to what families are facing now.
We’ve recently seen the largest shift away from support for families in modern history. All in favor of massive tax breaks for billionaires. The so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill” mercilessly slashes funding for healthcare and food for the rest of us to subsidize nearly $5 trillion in tax cuts for the already rich.
That doesn’t seem very fair to me.
According to the Urban Institute, more than half of American families can’t afford the true cost of living in their communities, even when both adults work full-time. Costs, especially for essentials like housing, food, childcare, and healthcare, are rising faster than wages.
The label “middle class” hides the real financial stress that millions of us feel. We don’t make enough to cover what our families need, yet we make too much to qualify for help when we need it.
The programs that would help everyday Americans weather the occasional storms have been pillaged to give trillions more to billionaires. Meanwhile, Trump’s tariffs have cost the average US family an extra $1,000 last year and are expected to cost families $1,300 this year.
I’m facing a layoff from my current job in a dismal job market, which will cost my family and me our employer-provided healthcare. And with Congress both slashing Medicaid and allowing extended subsidies for Affordable Care Act plans to expire, I don’t know how I will afford our health coverage.
While many in Washington point to record stock market highs as proof of a booming economy, those gains don’t reflect the reality at my kitchen table. A rising Dow Jones doesn’t pay for a child’s doctor visit or lower the price of eggs. For families like mine, the economy isn’t measured by a ticker, but by our bank balance. You simply can’t pay your mortgage with someone else’s stock gains.
As life becomes less and less affordable for working people, we need to restore and expand our social safety net so those of us who work for a living can keep our families affordably housed, fed, and healthy. Currently, we’re headed in the wrong direction.
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Despite Vows on ‘Affordability,’ Trump Proclaims: ‘I Want to Drive Housing Prices Up’
We're not to going create conditions, said the billionaire president who inherited his wealth, "so that somebody that didn't work very hard can buy a home."
Jan 29, 2026
President Donald Trump in recent weeks has vowed to make living in the US more affordable, as polls have consistently shown voters are giving him low marks on both his handling of the economy and inflation.
However, Trump undercut this pledge during a Cabinet meeting on Thursday in which he said he wanted—despite a nationwide housing crisis—to actively make housing even more expensive than it is today.
"Existing housing, people that own their home, we're going to keep them wealthy, we're going to keep those prices up," Trump said. "We're not going to destroy the value of their homes so that somebody that didn't work very hard can buy a home."
Trump: I don’t want to drive housing prices down. I want to drive housing prices up for people who own their homes. You can be sure that will happen pic.twitter.com/9BupkUmXss
— Acyn (@Acyn) January 29, 2026
Trump added that his administration wanted to "make it easier to buy" a house by lowering interest rates, but then reiterated that he wanted to make houses themselves more expensive.
"There's so much talk of, 'Oh, we're going to drive housing prices down,'" Trump said. "I don't want to drive housing prices down, I want to drive housing prices up for people that own their homes. And they can be assured that's what's going to happen."
The implications of the president's remarks were obvious to those concerned about the nation's affordable housing crisis and the struggle of working people trying to get by.
As Melanie D'Arrigo, executive director for the Campaign for New York Health, put it: "54% of Americans struggle to afford housing, and over 770,000 Americans are homeless—and Trump doesn't think those numbers are high enough."
A Fox News poll released on Wednesday found that 54% of Americans think the US is worse off now than it was a year ago, while just 31% say the country is in better shape. Just 25% of voters surveyed said they are better off now than they were a year ago, and more than 40% said that Trump's economic policies have personally hurt them.
Given Trump's already low numbers on economic performance, many observers were quick to ridicule him for his pledge to make existing houses less affordable for prospective buyers.
"Hello Donald this is your political strategist speaking," George Pearkes, global macro strategist for Bespoke Investment Group, sarcastically wrote. "I am advising you today to please keep saying this stuff."
Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández (D-N.M.) argued that Trump's views on housing prices put him well out of touch with most US voters.
"Trump only sees the world as a rich developer," she wrote in a social media post. "He has never, and will never, care about creating affordable homeownership for working and middle class Americans."
Vox writer Eric Levitz posted a not-so-subtle dig at Trump for straying so easily off message.
https://t.co/qnR9wJiaBX pic.twitter.com/zrafC50Bea
— Eric Levitz (@EricLevitz) January 29, 2026
Polling analyst G. Elliott Morris, meanwhile, said that Trump's inability to stay on message was entirely predictable given his notorious unpredictability.
"Trump launched an affordability-focused midterm campaign for Republicans this week, traveling to Iowa to give a speech about how good his presidency has been for the cost of living," he wrote. "That's going about as well as you'd think. Here POTUS is saying he is going to keep housing prices high."
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