If there is one piece of legislation Congress prioritizes every year, it’s the annual government spending bill. After the usual last-minute hiccups over amendments, the Senate finally settled on an agreement to pass the $1.7 trillion bill and the House followed suit.
Unsurprisingly, much of the debate over the spending package focused on the top-line numbers, particularly in the realm of defense. At $858 billion, the U.S. defense budget got a boost of $76 billion, or about 10%, from the previous year. The money will be used to finance everything from major weapons systems to the development of next-generation military technology. Some lawmakers still view the figures as much too low; Sen. Roger Wicker, the incoming ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, is arguing for a more sustained, long-term increase of at least 5% of gross domestic product.
Very little attention, however, is devoted to why the U.S. defense budget is so high, a somewhat mysterious development considering that the era of so-called endless wars is supposedly coming to a close. The answer is obvious, even if it’s glossed over by debates about weapons buys and wokeness: Washington’s insistence on maintaining global primacy is extraordinarily expensive and strains limited U.S. military resources.
