WASHINGTON — Last week, President Joe Biden sent Congress his proposed defense budget for the next fiscal year: an $813 billion wish list, almost $60 billion more than he requested a year ago — more military spending than any president, including Donald Trump, has requested since World War II.
Once Congress approves the request — and, in all likelihood, makes it bigger — U.S. defense spending will be larger in inflation-adjusted dollars than it was at the height of the Vietnam War or President Ronald Reagan’s Cold War buildup.
Only two years ago, when Biden was running for president, progressives in the Democratic Party hoped disengagement from Iraq and Afghanistan would produce a “peace dividend” — savings on defense that could be plowed into domestic priorities.
