Military spending reaches a new “all-time high” seemingly every year. The bulk of defense spending isn’t going toward paying troops—it’s going to federal contractors and the products they design and build for military use. Sadly, some of the largest expenditures are for technology that outright fails, is over budget, or, in many cases, is unnecessary.

Phyllis Bennis, director of the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, joined the Laura Flanders Show to discuss the military budget and prospects for drastically cutting defense spending.