Trump’s $88 billion Iran war request stuffed with pork

The White House sent lawmakers a request for an $87.6 billion supplemental funding package Wednesday. Observers warn the request lacks transparency — and that it’s stuffed with pork.

Of the $87.6 billion request, a majority ($67 billion) would go to the Department of Defense, mostly to cover the costs of Washington’s war on Iran.

But that request doesn’t square with previous statements from the administration about the war’s costs. “The last public estimate the Pentagon provided about the cost of the Iran war was $29 billion,” said Ben Freeman, the director of the Quincy Institute’s Democratizing Foreign Policy Program. “Now they’re asking for $67 billion without offering any explanation for how the costs more than doubled in the past four weeks.”

$21 billion of the supplemental would replenish munitions the U.S. burned through during the war. But, as Julia Gledhill of the Stimson Center told RS, “the supplemental doesn’t even detail what weapons the Pentagon wants to buy.”

The supplemental also requests funds for the DoD’s fuel costs, drone manufacturing, cybersecurity needs, and a laundry list of other items, unrelated to the conflict. That includes $1.1 billion for Florida farmers ‘who faced damages from winter storms,” $300 million for elevator repairs in federal buildings nationwide, and $500 million toward the restoration of some D.C.-based memorials.

“And, of course [the request includes] a billion dollars to repair Penn Station in New York City which was, undoubtedly, critical to bringing the Iranian regime to its knees,” Freeman said.

In reality, the DoD doesn’t need the money the supplemental would provide, according to Steve Ellis, the president of Taxpayers for Common Sense.

“The Pentagon is currently sitting on over $100 billion in unobligated funds from budget reconciliation enacted a year ago,” Ellis said in a statement. “The need to address certain munitions shortfalls resulting from the war is real, but the Pentagon already has plenty of funds to do so.”

The supplemental request comes amid repeated pushes for increased defense spending, as the U.S. finds itself entangled in conflicts abroad.

“Our job, in conjunction with Congress, is to stop at nothing — between the base budget, a supplemental request and a reconciliation package — to ensure we deliver on the commander-in-chief’s vision for American defense dominance: a common-sense, America First military,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wrote in a New York Post op-ed Tuesday.

But, as Savannah Wooten of Public Citizen told RS, “tucking pet projects into a giant fund for the most initially unpopular war in American history won't work.” To Wooten’s point, lawmakers have come out swinging against the White House request.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, called the supplemental “an attempt to secure tens of billions of additional dollars for unrelated Pentagon priorities that should rightly be considered through the annual appropriations process.”

“The tens of billions in military spending requested by the Trump Administration could be used to protect Americans’ health care, feed hungry children, and help working families afford everyday life,” Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), the ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee, said in a statement.

“Instead, Trump wants taxpayers to continue footing the bill for his reckless war in Iran, which has sent the cost of gas and everyday goods skyrocketing, put our brave men and women in uniform at risk, and left the region no safer than before.”