{"id":1103,"date":"2026-07-22T20:09:51","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T20:09:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/smartmovinghome.com\/?p=1103"},"modified":"2026-07-22T20:09:51","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T20:09:51","slug":"hegseth-greatest-threat-to-us-would-be-failing-to-give-pentagon-1-5t-budget","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smartmovinghome.com\/?p=1103","title":{"rendered":"Hegseth: \u201cGreatest Threat\u201d to US Would Be Failing to Give Pentagon $1.5T Budget"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Truthout is an indispensable resource for activists, movement leaders and workers everywhere. Please make this work possible with a <\/span><\/i>quick donation<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Read more Smotrich Says US Fighting Iran as Israel Sits Back Is \u201cBest for Us\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

On Tuesday, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said that the \u201cgreatest threat\u201d that the U.S. faces is not the historic affordability crisis, institutionalized corruption, or rapid erosion of basic rights, but rather the prospect that the Pentagon \u2014 and the military contractors who profit from its contracts \u2014 may not get a half trillion-dollar raise next year.<\/p>\n

During his testimony to the Senate Appropriations Committee in which he advocated for the White House\u2019s request for an additional $87 billion for the U.S. and Israel\u2019s disastrous war on Iran, Hegseth said that \u201cbuilding the lethality of our joint force\u201d and \u201creinforcing peace through strength\u201d must be a top priority. <\/p>\n

\u201cNot funding this department at 1.5 trillion, I believe, is the greatest threat that our nation faces,\u201d Hegseth said.<\/p>\n

The secretary said that there were \u201cshortfalls\u201d under the Biden administration and that it was \u201cnot a priority to fund the Department of Defense under Biden\u201d \u2014 an assertion that is simply untrue. The Pentagon budget rose to record-breaking levels under Biden, with the Democratic administration requesting $850 billion for 2025, compared to a $740 billion budget during his first year in office.<\/p>\n

Congress and the Trump administration already faced heavy criticism when they passed a Pentagon budget exceeding $1 trillion last year for the first time since World War II, when nearly the entire U.S. economy was mobilized for the war effort.<\/p>\n

Now, the White House is requesting a record-shattering $1.5 trillion budget for next year. The additional $500 billion alone is enough to fund nearly the entire yearly budget for Medicaid, as the National Priorities Project points out. Or, it\u2019s enough to fund the combined annual budgets for Child Tax Credit, SNAP, the federal school lunch program, FEMA, the Federal Aviation Administration, the National Institutes of Health, and the Environmental Protection Agency.<\/p>\n

Read more Trump Threatens to Bomb Iranian Civilian Sites, Potential War Crimes<\/a><\/p>\n

Instead, as in years past, roughly half of the Pentagon\u2019s massive budget will go toward private contractors like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, as well as companies owned by Trump allies like Palantir and SpaceX. The rest will be spent within an agency that is incapable of keeping track of its assets, as the Pentagon is the only one of the government\u2019s 24 major agencies that has never passed an audit. <\/p>\n

The particular Pentagon budget that Hegseth is referring to, the 2027 National Defense Authority Act, contains a provision to establish a program that would integrate the U.S. and Israeli militaries\u2019 supply chains and technology development on an unprecedented level.<\/p>\n

Hegseth\u2019s comment on the \u201cthreat\u201d to the U.S. is highly ironic considering that, just on Sunday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio criticized Iran\u2019s government for spending money on militarism rather than spending on programs directly serving the Iranian people.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey spent billions of dollars supporting militias in Iraq, Hezbollah, and Hamas,\u201d Rubio said. \u201cThey should be spending billions of dollars supporting the people of Iran. They should be spending on things like building their country. \u201c<\/p>\n

During the hearing, Hegseth claimed that the Iran war \u2014 the most unpopular war on polling record in U.S. history \u2014 has only cost $37.5 billion so far. However, NBC<\/em> reported last week that, internally, the Pentagon estimates that the war has cost at least $80 billion, and up to $100 billion thus far. <\/p>\n

Hegseth also struggled to make the case that another $87 billion was necessary to continue fighting the war. When asked about the $75 billion in unspent funds allocated to the Pentagon by the GOP\u2019s Big Beautiful Bill last year, Hegseth said that that money was already being spent on helping to \u201cmove away from all the woke priorities of what the Biden administration was pursuing\u201d and toward things like the development of oft-criticized hypersonic weapons.<\/p>\n

Read more At Least 1.5 Million Kids Have Lost Food Assistance Under Republican Budget Law<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over half of the Pentagon\u2019s budget annually goes toward private contractors, like Palantir.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1102,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"yoast_head":"\nHegseth: \u201cGreatest Threat\u201d to US Would Be Failing to Give Pentagon $1.5T Budget - Smart Moving Home<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/smartmovinghome.com\/?p=1103\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Hegseth: \u201cGreatest Threat\u201d to US Would Be Failing to Give Pentagon $1.5T Budget - 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