President Donald Trump’s enormous Pentagon budget request comes with a “dirty little secret,” as Americans already pay far more for the military than its official budget suggests, writer David Vine argued in Mother Jones.
“We’re already spending more—way more—than what the Pentagon reports, and most media outlets dutifully parrot,” Vine wrote Thursday, a figure he says will “blow your mind.”
A Project on Government Oversight report he helped coauthor estimates total military spending in fiscal 2025 at $1.5 trillion to $2.3 trillion, depending on how expenditures are counted.
“We already spend at least that much on the US military each year, and maybe a lot more,” he told readers.
The military budget’s true scale “is much larger than reported,” economist Heidi Peltier of Brown University’s Costs of War Project told Vine. She said more detailed accounting puts spending between 50% to 130% “higher than is usually reported.”
“A figure likely to stun most Americans,” she added.
The report includes expenses spread across other agencies, including nuclear weapons programs, military pensions and veterans’ benefits.
“If Congress grants Trump’s requests,” Vine wrote, “we’ll be spending $2 trillion to $3 trillion on the military and its wars.”
Trump’s massive new Pentagon request comes as public resistance grows. A Washington Post poll in late April found 65% of U.S. adults oppose it, according to Mother Jones.
Vine concluded Thursday with a stark warning about what the oversized spending bump really means.
“Put bluntly, a larger military budget means more war,” he concluded.
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