Trump plans to turn the military into 'endless casino buffet' of reckless spending

Why does President Donald Trump need the "staggering" sum of $1.5 trillion in military funding? According to a new piece from the New York Times, it is to fund his "weirdly retro" military fantasies — and also to avoid having to make "difficult choices" and turn defense spending into an "endless casino buffet."

Writing for the Times on Wednesday, veteran national security reporter Noah Shachtman wrote that this latest funding request from the Pentagon represents a 40 percent increase from the one it made last year, which was already "incomprehensible," and is roughly the same as "the annual revenues of Amazon, Google’s parent company and Apple combined."

Shachtman also explained why the request was not even really a "budget" request, in the traditional sense, as it essentially provides the Defense Department with enough money that it would not have to make strategic spending decisions.

"The word 'budget' ordinarily implies picking among options, living within your means," Shachtman explained. "Earlier military budgets, even the most gigantic ones, made trade-offs — canceled weapons programs, deferred maintenance, smaller fighting forces, to name a few. [Secretary of Defense Pete] Hegseth’s plan avoids those choices almost entirely."

He continued: "It would funnel more money to the traditional military contractors that Mr. Hegseth previously called out for feasting on a wasteful, bloated system. It would bankroll President Trump’s weirdly retro military wish list. On top of all that, Mr. Hegseth has asked Congress for $350 billion that would come with far less oversight or accountability than the rest of the sum. And that’s before the bill for the Iran war comes due; the Pentagon estimates it has cost $29 billion so far, up from an estimate of $25 billion a few weeks ago."

Todd Harrison is a military budget specialist for the center-right American Enterprise Institute, and he offered further insight into the rationale behind the ludicrously high funding request.

"They’re just doing an all-of-the-above approach," Harrison told the Times, adding that this strategy would mean they "don’t have to make difficult choices" when it comes to funding allocations.

This funding request, which would effectively turn the DOD into an "endless casino buffet" of military spending, "was more like a dare" than a real and carefully crafted budget proposal, attempting to "reframe the debate on his own maximalist terms." Shachtman noted that the Pentagon reportedly "scrambled" to find ways to even begin spending such a large sum of money.