The United States Is Self-Destructing Amid Empire Collapse

The Trump administration’s budget request for fiscal year 2027 is a bat-signal to Congress. The American empire is in trouble, and the White House is working to ensure that the country declines with it. If there was ever a time for lawmakers to discipline the Pentagon, it’s now.

The White House released preliminary details of the federal budget for fiscal year 2027 on Friday. The president requested $1.15 trillion for the Pentagon, as well as an additional $350 billion for the military, outside of the regular budget process. If Congress can approve this latest proposal in a separate spending bill, it would net President Trump a $1.5 trillion budget, a 44 percent increase over last year.

The administration’s budget request to Congress comes as the United States passes the first month of its illegal and dangerous war against Iran — which, according to YouGov, about 60 percent of Americans oppose. It remains to be seen whether the Pentagon will seek to fund more of the war, even though the Pentagon suggested a separate $200 billion spending package just two weeks ago. Even with a ceasefire, the Pentagon could still pursue additional policy to replenish its weapons stockpiles. Regardless, lawmakers have a clear mandate: reduce the Pentagon’s budget and preserve their chance to achieve the domestic rejuvenation demanded by the American people.

The president is imposing austerity on the American people while prioritizing arms dealers and warmongers. The administration has proposed a 10 percent reduction in non-military spending, a reduction of $73 billion. But unnecessary military spending is accelerating America’s decline, at the expense of child care, health care and broader social welfare – as the president made explicit in his speech last Wednesday. According to the president, “it is not possible” for the federal government to take care of child care or health care: “We have to take care of one thing: military protection. We have to keep the country.”

The president’s idea to protect the country is the total production of weapons. But it’s actually just an idea, and an erroneous one at that. The United States does not have the industrial capacity or workforce to absorb a nearly $500 billion supplemental budget from the Pentagon in a single fiscal year. Production constraints aside, the president’s budget request kicks off his vanity projects. FY 2027 Budget Establishes Trump’s Golden Fleet, Including the Asset-battleship class. Americans may be losing essential services, but the administration made sure to set aside funds for the F-47 fighter jet and the Golden Dome, the president’s fantasy missile defense system.

The administration’s budget request highlights a serious misallocation of U.S. resources, but President Biden and his predecessors have paved the way for a Pentagon budget of more than $1 trillion. For years, Republicans and Democrats alike have invoked the prospect of World War III to justify increasing Pentagon budgets and unfettered weapons production. If the United States were as vulnerable to military attack as budget advocates claim, the federal government would exercise both executive powers and laws like the Defense Production Act to seize industrial capacity and increase weapons production in preparation for war — as the country did during World War II.

The administration boasts that the current military buildup exceeds even that before World War II. The only reasonable response to such excess is to drastically reduce military spending, starting with Trump’s pet projects: the Golden Dome missile defense system, the Golden Fleet and the F-47. Between last year’s “Big Beautiful Bill” and the proposed fiscal year 2027 bill, the administration is poised to commit at least $40 billion to the Golden Dome, the land and space shield meant to protect the United States from everything from ballistic missiles to hypersonic and cruise missiles. But a poorly designed and incredibly expensive missile shield is far from the most effective way to mitigate the threats posed by nuclear weapons: diplomacy, arms control, and nuclear nonproliferation.

Rather than committing generations of Americans to unnecessary or even technically infeasible weapons programs, Congress must cut off the American war machine at the source. Pentagon overspending fuels America’s war obsession, an affliction that fuels American hubris in countries like Iran and beyond. Military restraint, however, can be a driver and product of spending discipline. At the very least, drastic cuts to the Pentagon budget would save taxpayers from funding the president’s weapons wish list, which is irrelevant to coherent or realistic strategic thinking. More importantly, the Pentagon’s budget cuts would free up resources for programs that actually improve Americans’ quality of life, which is rapidly deteriorating amid stagnant wages and rising prices.