The proposed spending increase reflects how much the Trump administration has become focused on pushing new wars, and how much the White House loves to spend taxpayer money. 

Trump's pledge to increase military budgets by 50 percent comes as we find that federal spending in the new fiscal year remains at some of the highest spending levels we've ever seen. Only three months into the fiscal year (which began on October 1), the federal government has spent more than $1.8 trillion, which is the second highest spending level for the period in history—even when adjusted for inflation. Not surprisingly, the federal government has run up a deficit of $602 billion. That's the third highest deficit total for the period in history (inflation adjusted), topped only by spending of the Covid Panic and Biden's final year in office.

In spite of Trump supporters claiming for months that we will "soon" see big cuts in federal spending, there is no sign of this at all. Indeed, the opposite is true since Trump now demands another half trillion for more spending on cronies in the defense industry and for more military hardware with which to threaten the US's own longtime allies and trading partners, such as Denmark. 

This will be the first fiscal year during which the Trump administration has been firmly in power for the duration, and if we're going off the numbers, it's hard to see any departure at all from the Biden years. If Trump gets his way on military spending, though, we will see a change from the Biden years: federal spending will be much higher. 

A 50-percent Increase in Military Spending? 

In a post to his social-media platform Truth Social last week, Trump stated that 

"After long and difficult negotiations with Senators, Congressmen, Secretaries, and other Political Representatives, I have determined that, for the Good of our Country, especially in these very troubled and dangerous times, our Military Budget for the year 2027 should not be $1 Trillion Dollars, but rather $1.5 Trillion Dollars ... This will allow us to build the 'Dream Military' that we have long been entitled to and, more importantly, that will keep us SAFE and SECURE, regardless of foe."

Military spending in the US tends to increase nearly every year, although in recent years, price inflation has been so substantial that inflation-adjusted military spending has been largely flat around $915 trillion since 2024. At this level, military spending is already above what it was during the 1980s when the US and the Soviet Union were in an arms race. Although the Soviet Union —a superpower that was three times the physical size of the United States—has disappeared, the US has continued to increase military spending since it launched wars against the Iraqis and the Afghanis. After spending trillions of dollars to "democratize" the Middle East and defeat the "axis of evil," those wars were lost, but the financial legacy of the spending remains.