Washington, D.C.  – Reports suggest that Congress is moving toward a $847 billion budget for the Pentagon and nuclear weapons – and that figure may grow even more.

As Lindsay Koshgarian, director of the National Priorities Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, told Truthout, “The same legislators who refused to continue child tax credits that cut child poverty in half are now choosing to add tens of billions of dollars to an already-enormous Pentagon budget. The bonus for the Pentagon is more than the entire annual climate investment under the Inflation Reduction Act. The only ones who will benefit are the corporations that sell weapons to the U.S. and around the world.”

In response to news of the proposed $847 billion Pentagon budget, the National Priorities Project at the Institute for Policy Studies issued the following comment:

“This month, news broke that the Pentagon once again failed to pass a basic audit showing that it knows where its money goes. And instead of holding out for any kind of accountability, Congress stands ready to give a big raise to an agency that failed to account for more than 60 percent of its assets.

This is a sign of an agency that is too big, plain and simple. Other major government agencies have long since passed audits. But the Pentagon, with its global sprawl of more than 750 military installations, and a budget increase that alone could more than double the diplomacy budget at the State Department, is so big and disjointed that no one knows where its money goes.

Here’s one solution: the Pentagon needs to be a lot smaller. After twenty years of war, and in a time when government spending is desperately needed elsewhere, the Pentagon’s fifth failed audit in as many years (and having never, ever passed) should be the last straw.

This isn’t using our taxpayer dollars wisely. It’s robbing programs that we need, like the discontinued child tax credit that cut child poverty by half. And it’s continuing the Pentagon’s legacy of war, all for the benefit of the contractors who commandeer roughly half of the Pentagon’s budget in any given year.

There are more reasonable voices in this mess: Congresswoman Barbara Lee and Congressman Mark Pocan have called for a $100 billion cut to the Pentagon budget, a correction that would open the door for other critical investments – and stop rewarding an agency that doesn’t even know where the money is going.”

To speak with Lindsay Koshgarian for further information or comment regarding the proposed Pentagon budget, contact Olivia Alperstein, Deputy Communications Director at IPS, at (202) 704-9011 or olivia@ips-dc.org.

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 About the National Priorities Project

The National Priorities Project at the Institute for Policy Studies fights for a federal budget that prioritizes peace, economic opportunity and shared prosperity for all. The National Priorities Project is the only nonprofit, non-partisan federal budget research program in the nation with the mission to make the federal budget accessible to the American public.

About the Institute for Policy Studies

For nearly six decades, the Institute for Policy Studies has provided critical research support for major social movements and progressive leaders inside and outside government and on the ground around the United States and the world. As the nation’s oldest progressive multi-issue think tank, IPS turns bold ideas into action through public scholarship and mentorship of the next generation of progressive scholars and activists.