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
national priorities project
$1 Billion Daily Cost of Trump's Iran War Could Fund Food Aid, Healthcare for Tens of Millions
"Medicare for All, or endless foreign wars?" asked Democratic US Senate candidate Graham Platner. "Anyone in the House or Senate giving the wrong answer should lose their seat."
Mar 06, 2026
The daily price tag of US President Donald Trump's illegal war on Iran would be enough to cover the daily costs of federal nutrition assistance for more than 40 million Americans, as well as daily Medicaid costs for the roughly 16 million people expected to lose health coverage due to the Republican budget package that Trump signed into law last year.
That's according to an analysis published Thursday by the National Priorities Project (NPP), which noted that—on an annual basis—the estimated $1 billion-per-day cost of the US war on Iran is "higher than the appropriated budget of any federal agency except the Pentagon itself."
"That money could cover the things we need here at home," wrote NPP's Alliyah Lusuegro and Lindsay Koshgarian. "The tradeoff is clear: the Trump administration—backed by several members of Congress—is cutting healthcare and food assistance for millions of families while spending $1 billion a day on this emerging war."
"The question isn’t whether the money exists—it's what we choose to spend it on," they wrote.
In a social media post on Friday, Democratic US Senate candidate Graham Platner—a veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars—posed what he characterized as a "simple question" to members of Congress: "Medicare for All, or endless foreign wars?"
"Anyone in the House or Senate giving the wrong answer," Platner added, "should lose their seat."
"The cost of the war in Iraq ended up being almost $3 trillion. This could be astronomical, easily.”
The Pentagon's early estimate of the Iran war's cost was first reported by Atlantic journalist Nancy Youssef, who cited an unnamed congressional official.
In a separate analysis released earlier this week, the Center for Strategic and International Studies put the cost of the first 100 hours of the Iran war at $3.7 billion, or $891.4 million per day. The Pentagon is reportedly planning to ask Congress to approve at least $50 billion in supplemental funding for the war, a historically unpopular assault that lawmakers did not authorize.
“Without support from the American people, Donald Trump led the country into a reckless war with Iran that has taken the lives of six service members and injured several others," said Kendall Witmer, rapid response director for the Democratic National Committee. "Now, the White House is scrambling to come up with a plan as the cost of Trump’s war skyrockets. Working families are already struggling with soaring prices and a hollowed-out job market—they can't afford Trump’s war of choice."
On Thursday, Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) asked the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office to conduct a thorough analysis of the financial costs of the Iran war, including scenarios in which the assault drags on for more than five weeks and the US launches a ground invasion.
“Taxpayers deserve a nonpartisan estimate of the financial and economic impact of President Trump’s reckless war in Iran that has already led to the tragic deaths of American servicemembers," said Boyle. "American families don’t want billions of dollars wasted on an unnecessary war—they want lower costs and affordable healthcare.”
Koshgarian of NPP told CNN that the costs of war are "highly unpredictable, and so we won’t know the cost of it until it’s over."
"The cost of the war in Iraq ended up being almost $3 trillion,” Koshgarian said. “This could be astronomical, easily.”
Keep ReadingShow Less
Trump's DC Occupation Costs 4 Times More Than It Would Take to House City's Entire Homeless Population
"This militarized spending comes at the expense of federal programs—like public housing—that actually do prevent crime and improve health and education outcomes," said researcher Hanna Homestead.
Aug 22, 2025
Last week, when Trump federalized Washington, DC's police force and deployed the National Guard to occupy its streets, one of his main orders was to "end vagrancy" by destroying homeless encampments and arresting and forcibly relocating the people taking shelter there.
But according to an investigation published on Wednesday by Hanna Homestead of the National Priorities Project, in collaboration with The Intercept, deploying the National Guard and "getting rid of the slums" is costing far more than it would cost to simply provide housing to every homeless person in the city.
Governors from six US states have sent troops to Washington to help Trump's effort, swelling the ranks to nearly 2,100 who will soon be on patrol.
According to previous reporting, National Guard deployments cost the US government $530 per guard member each day. Using that figure, Homestead estimated that it would cost just over $1.1 million.
She added that "the number of troops will likely continue to grow. And with no deadline for the DC deployment, those costs could add up for months or even years."
According to the most recent data from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), there are about 5,600 people experiencing either sheltered and unsheltered homelessness in DC on a given night. Operating an affordable housing unit for each one of them, the data shows, costs about $45.44 per person, per day, on average in DC.
Providing affordable housing to every homeless person in DC would cost an estimated $255,166, which is 4.3 times less than the cost of Trump's military deployment.
"Taxpayers like you and me bear the cost of this cruel power grab," Homestead said. "This militarized spending comes at the expense of federal programs—like public housing—that actually do prevent crime and improve health and education outcomes."
Last week, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that over 70 encampments had been cleared since Trump's order to federalize the police. She also said that over 600 people had been arrested, though it was not specified how many of them were homeless.
Trump has sought to conflate homelessness with criminality, suggesting that the nation's capital had been "overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth, drugged-out maniacs, and homeless people."
While his solution has been a show of military force against people with nowhere to go, a large body of research suggests that the approach of providing "Housing First"—meaning a stable place to stay with no preconditions for sobriety or treatment—reduces crime.
A 2021 study from UCLA found that providing homeless people with targeted housing assistance reduced the probability of committing a crime by 80%.
"Arresting or ticketing people for sleeping outside makes homelessness worse, wastes taxpayer money, and simply does not work," said Jesse Rabinowitz of the National Homelessness Law Center. "The solution to homelessness is housing and supports, not handcuffs and jails."
But in addition to a crackdown on the homeless, the Trump administration is also pushing to eliminate funds for public housing. The White House's proposed budget for fiscal year 2026 slashes funding for HUD's Continuum of Care program, which provided cities with funding for initiatives to house the homeless.
According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, the proposal would effectively end funding of permanent supportive housing for 170,000 residents and potentially increase the number of homeless people in the US by 36%.
"Arresting people for no reason other than the fact that they have no home is inhumane and unjust," said Amber W. Harding, executive director of the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless. "It is particularly cruel to do so knowing that federal and local housing programs have been slashed and that DC does not have enough shelter beds."
"Fines, arrests, and encampment evictions make homelessness worse, further traumatize our homeless neighbors while disconnecting them from community and support," said Dana White, Director of Advocacy at Miriam's Kitchen, a DC-based homeless services organization. "If policing resolved homelessness, we wouldn't have homelessness here in DC or anywhere else in this country."
Keep ReadingShow Less
To Defeat Trump's Fascism, We Must Confront Militarism
While most Americans instinctively understand the threat U.S. militarism poses to democracy, the times call for more explicit links between militarism and rising fascism and a blueprint for reversing this threat.
Jun 12, 2025
President Trump’s deployment of 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines to Los Angeles to quash peaceful demonstrations against brutal ICE raids is a wake up call. Now is the time to push back against this administration’s use of military violence against its own citizens to consolidate authoritarian power. As Trump threatens to arrest California Governor Newsom and unleash “troops everywhere,” the people of this country must reject militarization as a tool of authoritarianism and stand firm to defend and expand democracy.
As tanks and troops descend upon Los Angeles to silence dissent, on Saturday, they will roll through Washington in a display of power, revealing the undercurrents of an administration that wields militarization not for defense, but for domination.
On his 79th birthday, President Trump will finally get his “big, beautiful” military parade, brandishing unrivaled U.S. military might on the streets of the nation’s capital. Marking the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army, the $45 million parade will feature nearly 7,000 soldiers marching down Constitution Avenue, flanked by hundreds of B-17 bombers, Strykers and Apache helicopters. Washington will look like Nazi Germany, and unless we tackle militarism in our fight to defend democracy, we, too, may soon live under authoritarian rule.
As longtime peace activists, we have opposed U.S. wars against Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, and raised the alarm over militarized U.S. foreign policies like war drills against China and North Korea which provoke a dangerous counter-reaction and fuels an arms race that could trigger nuclear war.
The Trump administration isn't trimming fat from the federal budget, they're cutting the heart out of communities to further enrich billionaires, war profiteers, and techno-fascists.
Deluged daily with domestic crises, it is challenging to draw attention to the dangers of U.S. militarism, especially when most view it as a problem “over there.”
But now we are in an era where masked ICE agents are raiding schools, workplaces, churches and homes, tearing apart families by abducting and deporting legal residents and rounding up students for protesting U.S. support of Israel’s genocide of Palestinians.
The U.S. public can no longer afford to ignore the lethal consequences of militarism on our democracy at a time when our Commander-in-Chief has pardoned January 6th vigilantes, defied the Constitution and judicial rulings, threatened to invoke the 1807 Insurrection Act, and has already deployed the National Guard and active-duty Marines in an attempt to quash dissent at home.
While most Americans instinctively understand the threat U.S. militarism poses to democracy, the times call for more explicit links between militarism and rising fascism and a blueprint for reversing this threat.
Contrary to Trump’s campaign promises to end U.S. involvement in Ukraine and Gaza, he is calling for an unprecedented $1.1 trillion Pentagon budget for more war and militarism, including modernizing nuclear weapons, further entrenching the U.S.’ permanent war footing across the Pacific and Asia in preparation for war with China, and massively increasing policing, detention and deportation.
In 2026 alone, Trump and Republicans want to spend an additional $43.8 billion on mass detentions and deportations, funding more ICE raids like those in LA. This militarized budget accounts for 75 percent of the entire discretionary budget, which explains why on top of massive tax cuts for billionaires, there is no money for social programs and federal agencies that actually help our communities feel safe – clean air and water, healthcare, child nutrition, education, and housing assistance.
U.S. taxpayers are told this historic increase in more militarism is a “generational investment” in defending our country, or that it’s to honor the sacrifices of U.S. service women and men.
But the truth is that half of the Pentagon budget goes to defense contractors that sell weapons of mass destruction to authoritarian states and human rights abusers, like Saudi Arabia and Israel. Instead of financing Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza with $17.9 billion in 2024, U.S. taxpayer dollars could have provided more than one million U.S. veterans with VA healthcare.
Our taxpayer dollars also enrich tech billionaires like Elon Musk, whose $277 million dollar donation to Trump’s campaign landed him a $5.2 billion dollar Pentagon deal in April, and a free pass to wage an administrative coup. Billions of our taxpayer dollars also go to venture capitalist Peter Thiel, co-founder of Paypal and Palantir, which Bloomberg describes as an “intelligence platform designed for the global War on Terror [that] was weaponized against ordinary Americans at home.” Thiel, who doesn’t “believe that freedom and democracy are compatible,” just received another contract to carry out ICE deportations, and is, along with Musk, Meta’s Zuckerberg and other techno-fascists, seeking to build a dystopian future of unregulated “network states” and surveil us all.
At a time when most Americans want an end to war, Trump is using our tax dollars to celebrate militarism as a cornerstone of consolidating authoritarian power...
The Trump administration isn't trimming fat from the federal budget, they're cutting the heart out of communities to further enrich billionaires, war profiteers, and techno-fascists. In the report Trading Life for Death, the National Priorities Project and Public Citizen found that militarized spending increases in the reconciliation proposals total $163 billion for FY 2026. That's more than enough to fund Medicaid for the 13.7 million people at risk of losing health care, and the 11 million people at risk of losing food stamps.
As Trump uses the parade as a spectacle to exalt his unchecked power, people around the country will join over 1,800 organized protests under the banners of “No Kings Day” and “Kick Out the Clowns.” This day of action offers an opportunity to shine a light on the threat of a highly militarized society to our democracy, from the bloated Pentagon budget that leaches funding from investments that make us secure, to state capture by techno-fascists on our taxpayer dime. We need to do the hard work to redefine our paradigm of national security. The Feminist Peace Playbook: A Guide for Transforming U.S. Foreign Policy provides one such guide for moving our country from one defined by war and violence to one built on care, compassion and cooperation.
Let’s heed the prescient words of President Eisenhower, a five-star general who led the Allied Forces in WWII to defeat fascism, when he warned Americans to “guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence… by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist."
At a time when most Americans want an end to war, Trump is using our tax dollars to celebrate militarism as a cornerstone of consolidating authoritarian power at home.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular