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Just Say No to Trump's Bloody New Deal
In an era of illegal wars and dangerous domestic military operations, Trump’s budget plan would hand trillions of additional dollars to defense contractors and militarize our country in ways not seen since World War II.
Mar 23, 2026
Congress expects to receive the Trump administration’s official budget request for fiscal year 2027 sometime next week. If it is consistent with President Donald Trump’s “announcement” on Truth Social on January 8 that his administration would request a defense budget of $1.5 trillion—$600 billion more than this year—that would be a whopping 66% increase in military spending.
If passed and sustained, analysis shows the plan will add almost $6 trillion to the national debt in the next decade. In an era of illegal wars and dangerous domestic military operations, Trump’s plan would hand trillions of additional dollars to defense contractors and militarize our country in ways not seen since World War II—what we might call a “Bloody New Deal.”
A Level of Spending With Almost No Precedent
The original New Deal took place over six years in the 1930s and infused the US economy with government spending to end the Great Depression. It cost $41.7 billion at the time, translating to around $1 trillion in today’s dollars. Given the comparatively small size of the US economy in the 1930s, the New Deal remains one of the largest economic stimulus packages in US history (if not the largest).
Among modern spending packages, the Bloody New Deal would stand alone in scope. If enacted and sustained over the next 10 years, it will cost roughly six times as much as President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (although many of its provisions have been rolled back by the Trump administration since this cost estimate), four times as much as President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, and twice as much as President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Even though Trump has claimed he will use tariff revenue to pay for his spending increase—now in question due to the recent Supreme Court decision striking down most of his tariffs—the Bloody New Deal will add at least $5.8 trillion dollars to the national debt over the next decade, which will harm our financial security and long-term warfighting ability. And that figure is based on a rosy outlook for tariff revenue and a conservative outlook of defense spending growth.
Pouring funds into a defense sector that has repeatedly failed basic tests of accountability will not miraculously produce innovation.
By comparing this massive spending plan to other options, the potential scope of President Trump’s announcement becomes even clearer. For $6 trillion over 10 years, the US government could simultaneously fund all the following:
- More than 750,000 new registered nurses
- 11.5 million new public housing units
- 1 million new elementary school teachers
- 6 million people receiving paid parental leave
- 5.9 million new Head Start slots for children
What would the Bloody New Deal’s billions get us?
While the president was, as usual, frustratingly vague when announcing the largest single increase in US defense spending, congressional Republicans have recently provided more clues about what they would fund and how long this increase would last. The chair of the House Armed Services Committee has indicated the funding will be used to grow the “defense industrial base” and Trump’s pet projects, the missile defense scheme “Golden Dome” and the Navy modernization project “Golden Fleet.”
Growing the industrial base for our military has been a long-term bipartisan priority in Congress. Almost all new military acquisition projects this century have struggled with brittle supply chains and out-of-date procurement practices that could be helped by a stronger industrial base. But this goal either means a one-time increase would be a fool’s errand, unable to solve the problem, or an admission that the spending increase would be made permanent, as some House Republicans have already called for. On a very basic and intuitive level, long-term capacity cannot be created without long-term funding commitments to the defense industry.
Setting aside all the wasted money on infeasible fantasy projects like Golden Dome and Golden Fleet, the Bloody New Deal, even if sustained, won’t fix the problems it sets out to solve. A host of structural issues, not a lack of funding, have caused a failure in output from our defense industrial base.
One of these issues, monopolization, provides an example of something that cannot be fixed with more funds. Both former President Biden’s and President Trump’s defense appointees have pointed out that the shrinking number of contractors has kneecapped our ability to produce military equipment due to a lack of competition, anti-competitive behavior, and contractor influence in Congress. In the 1990s, there were 51 major defense contractors. Today, there are only five.
The Bloody New Deal would likely cause a temporary feeding frenzy for new entrants into the defense sector in its first year like that seen in the massive Golden Dome bidding process currently underway. But history has shown the market will likely reward existing firms when all is said and done. After 9/11, rapid-procurement authorities and emergency funding briefly pulled hundreds of non-traditional firms into defense contracting before mergers and closures quickly narrowed the field again.
In the end, it is likely the Bloody New Deal will only grow the power of incumbent contractors. Even the Pentagon has signaled it wouldn’t know how to deal with this amount of money if it was passed. In 10 years, the largest increase in discretionary spending in modern US history could very well be regarded as the largest corporate welfare plan for defense contractors and arms salesmen, not remembered for making anyone more secure.
Now Is the Time for Opposition
For a spending plan of potentially unparalleled scope, the lack of attention it has received is shocking. If this Bloody New Deal actually passes, it could give unparalleled increases in financial power to defense contractors and support for the political work they already do to influence Congress. The Trump administration may also try to get a rumored $200 billion supplemental defense spending package through Congress to support its ongoing war against Iran. Although this is a different way of increasing the defense budget, the outcome would be much the same.
Sane voices need to act now, building opposition to this unprecedented plan. Especially in the context of attacks decrying President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act as too expensive or unrealistic, and all of the work the current administration has done to undermine that bill, this infeasible proposal becomes all the more ludicrous. Progressives should be unflinching in defining this proposal as a blank check for the same contractors who cannot deliver ships on time, munitions at scale, or clean audits. Pouring funds into a defense sector that has repeatedly failed basic tests of accountability will not miraculously produce innovation.
As the Trump administration makes clear its unchecked willingness to attack other countries regardless of legality, the stakes of dumping unprecedented funds into the US military-industrial complex have never been higher.
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Trump Admin Planning to Use Private Mercenaries to Shield Oil Plunder Efforts in Venezuela
Erik Prince, the notorious founder of Blackwater, has reportedly been floated as a possible option as the Trump administration seeks help securing and exploiting Venezuela's oil operations.
Jan 15, 2026
The Trump administration is reportedly planning to hire private military contractors—including possibly the notorious mercenary Erik Prince—to provide security as the US works to plunder Venezuela's massive oil reserves.
CNN reported Thursday that "multiple private security companies are already jockeying to get involved in the US presence in Venezuela" as American oil giants push for physical security guarantees before they back President Donald Trump's push for $100 billion in investment in the country.
"Interest is high given the potential payday; during the Iraq War, the US spent some $138 billion on private security, logistics, and reconstruction contractors," the outlet noted. "One source suggested that Erik Prince, the former Blackwater founder and controversial Trump ally, could also be tapped for help. Prince’s Blackwater played an outsized role in Iraq after the 2003 US invasion, providing security, logistics, and support for oil infrastructure. But the firm came under intense scrutiny following the 2007 deadly shooting of Iraqi civilians."
Prince is currently operating in the region, having partnered with Ecuador's right-wing government as part of a crackdown on organized crime that has been replete with human rights abuses.
News of the Trump administration's potential use of private mercenaries in Venezuela came after the US officially completed its first sale of Venezuelan oil. The sale, valued at $500 million, came days after Trump met with top oil executives at the White House to discuss efforts to exploit Venezuela's oil reserves following the illegal US abduction of President Nicolás Maduro earlier this month.
Darren Woods, the CEO of Exxon Mobil, said his company would need "durable investment protections" before making any commitments in Venezuela.
CNN reported Thursday that the Pentagon has "put out a Request for Information to contractors about their ability to support possible US military operations in Venezuela."
"Contractors are also in touch with the State Department’s overseas building operations office to cite interest in providing security if and when the US embassy in Venezuela reopens," according to CNN.
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'Trillion Dollar War Machine': Understanding US Militarism and How to Dismantle It
William D. Hartung and Ben Freeman's extremely timely and necessary book explains how today's crises are the predictable consequence of an entrenched system of militarism, a politics captured by lobbies, and elite self-dealing.
Nov 19, 2025
At this very second, Washington is pouring billions into escalations toward a potential invasion of Venezuela that would set Latin America on fire, escalate tensions with neighbors, and trap US troops in another undefined quagmire. It has already conducted about a dozen strikes on unproven “drug boats” in the Caribbean, without congressional approval, a trial, or even demonstrated intelligence, killing innumerable Venezuelan and foreign civilians, while it has moved Naval strike groups and carriers near Venezuela’s shores. This is one of the disastrous and preventable results of American militarism, exceptionalism, and the military-industrial complex that fuels them.
Such is the context in which The Trillion Dollar War Machine lands on bookshelves. William D. Hartung and Ben Freeman's extremely timely and necessary book explains how these crises are not a series of isolated events, but the predictable consequence of an entrenched system of militarism, a politics captured by lobbies, and elite self-dealing that traces its lineage back to President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s 1961 warning about the military-industrial complex.
Their diagnosis offers a map of the structural forces that continuously push America toward war, even when the public wants peace and even when national security (and economics) is the pretext rather than the driver. America engineers itself into these wars for elite interests.
As Hartung and Freeman detail, more than half of the Pentagon budget now goes to private contractors. These corporations, especially the “Big Five” of Lockheed Martin, RTX (formerly Raytheon), Boeing, General Dynamics, and Northrop Grumman, have together absorbed more than $2.1 trillion in Pentagon contracts in the post-9/11 era. The book opens by reminding us that $8 trillion were wasted by the war machine on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The end of the world and MAD could be ushered in because Lockheed Martin and Congress can’t stop obsessing over their stocks and profits.
That sum alone could have fully decarbonized the US electrical grid; paid off every student loan in the country; and still had trillions left for climate resilience, healthcare, and democratic infrastructure. Even just maintaining the system as it is costs billions—America’s 750 military bases in 80 countries cost $55 billion a year to maintain. A lot of them, like in Guam, have also destroyed the environment, caused irreparable health effects, and stalled the local economy and democracy.
When Jamal Khashoggi was murdered, and Congress briefly considered blocking US weapons transfers to Saudi Arabia, lobbyists went to work behind the scenes to “derail the initiative.” In the same week they lobbied lawmakers, they donated to the same lawmakers’ campaigns. Everything about that should look like bribery. But because the military-industrial complex is woven into the legal, regulatory, and cultural DNA of Washington, it is perfectly legal. In fact, it’s just a regular Tuesday. This is the machinery that powers nearly every war the United States engages in.
Hartung and Freeman document how 945 lobbyists work directly for Pentagon contractors; how dozens of them are simultaneously registered as foreign agents; and how former members of Congress, Pentagon staffers, and even chiefs of staff for the nation’s most powerful leaders pass seamlessly through the revolving door to sell weapons to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and other authoritarian regimes. American foreign policy is shaped in lobbying offices, overpriced dinners, and backdoor negotiations with firms that openly expect “business benefits” from new wars. The consequences of this model are catastrophic for human life.
The book recounts how US weapons have fueled atrocities in Yemen, the Philippines, Nigeria, Egypt, and now Gaza, where the authors confirm what most of us progressives already knew; that most of the people killed “have nothing to do with Hamas.” They cite updated reporting that the Biden administration concluded more than 100 separate arms transfers to Israel in the first months of the war, without even informing Congress.
More than half of the conflicts on Earth involve US weapons on at least one side. The United States continues to arm regimes that Freedom House classifies as “not free,” even when those regimes commit torture, disappearances, mass detentions, and extrajudicial murders. Even this week, there has been reporting into Egypt’s continued use of torture and crimes against humanity in its “counterterrorism” efforts, with US weapons and taxpayer money. Wherever there is repression, inequality, or mass death, US weapons are often close by. The results do not make the US, or the world, safer, freer, or more prosperous; in fact, they do quite the opposite.
Hartung and Freeman trace how an arms industry that began as an adjunct to US defense has transformed into a permanent, profit-seeking entity that requires conflict to justify its existence. They revisit the “last supper” of the 1990s, when defense mergers consolidated the industry into a small cluster of giants, and the Pentagon volunteered billions in taxpayer dollars to subsidize those mergers, even giving executives multimillion-dollar “golden parachutes,” funded by tax money.
They revisit how the highly dangerous nuclear triad was shaped not by strategy but by “turf wars” between the Air Force and Navy, each desperate to preserve its slice of the budget. That’s right, the end of the world and MAD could be ushered in because Lockheed Martin and Congress can’t stop obsessing over their stocks and profits. Hartung and Freeman also revisit the disastrous Littoral Combat Ship program, the “Little Crappy Ship,” which was pushed through political pressure even after the Navy warned it was unfit for combat. M1 Abrams tanks were also sold to Ukraine, after being pushed by think tanks funded by defense contractors, even as the tanks resulted in catastrophic casualties for Ukrainian fighters. In every case, the logic is identical. Weapons are built because there is profit in building them, not because there is security in possessing them. Don’t fall for the tired arguments about “job creation” and “American manufacturing,” either; Hartung and Freeman show other, non-military economic sectors are much better at creating jobs, for cheaper. Most MIC jobs aren’t even unionized.
One of the book’s most disturbing contributions is its detailed exploration of how the war machine’s surplus equipment, tactics, and political culture flowed into policing. The authors describe a country where protesting can be met with military-grade rifles, armored vehicles, acoustic weapons, and tear gas developed for counterinsurgency. They note that more than 6,500 police departments have received $7 billion worth of Pentagon equipment through the 1033 Program. They argue that “it’s not the police, it’s a paramilitary force.” It’s simply the domestic mirror of the foreign policy problem (also called the Imperial Boomerang). Now, American communities live under the terror and oppression that much of the world has suffered through, in Washington’s own wars.
The authors argue for a “new peace network,” a coalition of movements that understand militarism as a unifying force behind poverty, racial injustice, surveillance, climate destruction, and authoritarianism.
The authors also underline the economic argument for dismantling the war machine. Military spending has become one of the least efficient job creators in the entire US economy. Investments in healthcare, education, climate resilience, and clean energy create far more jobs than investments in defense. Pentagon contractors, they show, are shedding union jobs at historic rates. Corporations like Lockheed Martin spend billions on stock buybacks rather than innovation. Automation will soon cut even more jobs. The economic bargain that once tied militarism to employment is dissolving. The authors argue that a just transition away from militarism is not just possible. It is necessary.
The authors also expose how deeply media culture is implicated in sustaining this system. Hartung and Freeman recount how Hollywood rewrites scripts at the Pentagon’s request in exchange for access to hardware. How think tanks funded by weapons manufacturers produce reports that conveniently recommend more weapons purchases. How television networks turn war planners into celebrities, how the Iraq War was sold through manufactured narratives, and how even major news organizations were swept up in the 9/11 wave of militarism. They highlight the “artificial consensus” that emerges when the same small circle of MIC-funded think tanks supply the experts for congressional hearings, television panels, and academic publications. This is why dissent is always framed as fringe, because it goes against an entire manufactured apparatus of propaganda and warfare, funded by taxpayer money and corporations.
The book is chock-full of these stories, each more infuriating than the other, but compiled in a way that could drive someone numb. However, do not despair; the authors, as they should, propose a successful path forward.
Every chapter offers a form of resistance, however small. They emphasize the importance of organizations like the Project on Government Oversight (or POGO), which, though it started out mostly getting attention from conspiracists and sci-fi enthusiasts, has defended whistleblowers and exposed fraud. They highlight reporting from independent outlets like ProPublica and FAIR that refuse to act as stenographers for the war machine, and progressive fighters in Congress like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who have pushed back from the inside.
They recount moments when insiders resisted corruption, when whistleblowers forced accountability, and when activists successfully shut down harmful programs. Public opinion overwhelmingly opposes new nuclear weapons, endless wars, and blank-check aid to repressive allies. The machine can be broken, but it takes an “all-hands-on-deck approach,” as the authors hammer home.
The book’s most hopeful chapter focuses on the much-needed peace movement. The authors argue for a “new peace network,” a coalition of movements that understand militarism as a unifying force behind poverty, racial injustice, surveillance, climate destruction, and authoritarianism. They highlight the Poor People’s Campaign, built on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s vision, which brings veterans, workers, and marginalized communities into a shared struggle against economic exploitation and war. They emphasize that any new peace movement must bridge ideological divides, drawing support from libertarians, populists, progressives, veterans, and communities directly harmed by war and militarization. They warn against grifters and extremists who exploit anti-war sentiment to push bigotry or authoritarian agendas (one could maybe think of examples, like Tucker Carlson, Matt Walsh, Nick Fuentes, or even Donald Trump). They insist that a principled peace movement must be rooted in solidarity, democracy, and human dignity.
This is where Hartung and Freeman’s credibility matters. Both authors have spent years inside Washington, fighting the very system they describe. Freeman’s landmark investigations at the Project on Government Oversight reshaped our understanding of foreign influence, and his current work at the Quincy Institute, including with the Think Tank Funding Tracker, continues to expose the financial pipelines between authoritarian regimes and corporations, and US policymaking.
Their blueprint also includes campaign finance reform to sever the link between money and militarism. It includes transparency laws to expose think-tank conflicts of interest, robust whistleblower protections for insiders willing to confront corruption, new priorities for federal spending that center human needs rather than endless war, and, most importantly, reimagining foreign policy around genuine defense rather than global weapons distribution. They, for instance, point to arming Ukraine against Russia’s imperialistic invasion as a noble cause (with caveats of course, which they get into), but warn against arming Israel, whose wars in the Middle East are not defensive. But this can’t happen without people pushing relentlessly.
The book ends with a warning and a call to action. The war machine is everywhere. It exists in budgets; in lobby shops; in universities; in movies; in police departments; in political campaigns; at sports games; and in the language we use to talk about our politics, society, culture, and life. But monsters can be tamed. They can be disrupted, defunded, delegitimized, and replaced.
We must get informed (first by reading this book!), pressure our representatives, support whistleblowers, follow and strengthen genuine independent media, create and join movements fighting militarism, and refuse to accept that endless war is the price of life, freedom, and citizenship. We all have agency, power, and responsibility to stop the war machine. Time to organize.
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