“The American Dream will soon be back and thriving like never before.” 1/20/25
“…I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation.” 5/12/2026
-President Donald Trump
Millions, Billions, Trillions! Are We Safe & Secure?
In 2026 alone, over 600,000 people in the United States are expected to die from cancer – some 200,000 more than the number of Americans who died in the Second World War. Today, 50 million Americans live at or below 125% of the national poverty line. Twenty-seven million people do not have health insurance.
Since the start of the Iran war, gas prices have increased over 50%, home prices are beyond the reach of most young people, inflation is higher than it’s been in several years and the labor market is moving toward crisis as a result of AI and other current policies. No wonder only 23% of voters approve of how the president is handling “cost of living” issues and “affordability” is on most everyone’s mind these days.
Meanwhile, the Iran war has already cost an estimated nearly $30 billion and the Trump administration has requested $1.5 trillion for next year’s military budget – a 42% increase. That includes over $100 billion for nuclear weapons-related spending, including some $18 billion for President Trump’s Golden Dome missile defense scheme. $28 billion just for one year of spending for the next-generation nuclear weapons programs – the Columbia-class nuclear submarine, B-21 nuclear bomber and Sentinel missile. (This same budget request asks for only $7.35 billion for the National Cancer Institute and a 12% cut in the budget for the National Institutes of Health).
Millions, billions, trillions! – it’s all too easy for one to become numb to these facts and figures, to lose sight of the story they tell and the human beings affected. It is a story of moral failure, fundamental neglect and misplaced priorities.
It’s a story that needs to be re-written with new heroes and protagonists – people like us and those we elected to represent us in Washington who are committed to examining and redefining the very notion of national and human security. What investments are needed to make people, families and communities truly safe and secure? Will these wars and the weapons of war and mass destruction make us safe?
Over the next few months Congress will need to grapple with some very difficult budget choices as part of the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and Defense Appropriations process in an election year when the economy is the number one concern of voters and ⅔ of the public disapproves of the president’s decision to go to war with Iran. Throughout this time there will be key opportunities for constituents to weigh in with their members of Congress, and congressional candidates as well to educate others in your community about the budget choices being made in Washington – and how those choices will impact our lives, well being and livelihoods. Here are two issues that deserve special attention from us in the coming months:
Strategic Missile Defense: False Promises, Wasteful Spending
President Trump’s proposed Golden Dome is a scheme to build before the end of his term a “very close to 100% effective” shield for the United States against nuclear missiles. This idea is pure fantasy. It won’t work and will cost unconscionable amounts of our tax dollars. A conservative think tank estimates that Golden Dome – as envisioned – would cost some $3.6 trillion
On May 19, Back from the Brink, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and Physicians for Social Responsibility released a report, Golden Dome or Golden Scam?: The False Promise of Strategic Missile Defense which asked the question of what kind of security would we get (or not get) for that $3.6 trillion in the event of a large-scale Russian nuclear attack. Using the highly optimistic scenario that Golden Dome would be able to intercept 80% of the incoming missiles, the report concluded that up to 300 Russian warheads would not be intercepted and some 75 million people in 132 of the nation’s population centers would likely die.
For almost as long as nuclear weapons have existed, the U.S. government with the enthusiastic support of the defense industry has worked to develop and field technology to detect, track and shoot down ballistic nuclear missiles – an incredibly difficult task given that ballistic missiles can fly up to 7000-19,000 miles per hour and the attacker can deploy decoys and other technology to fool or disrupt the defense system. $400 billion later the US has a very limited strategic missile defense system fielded in Alaska that has an unenviable testing and performance record. The bottom line – technology will never be able to effectively protect us against nuclear weapons. The only way to do that with confidence will be to eliminate nuclear weapons from the planet.
Plutonium Pit Production: Risky, Costly, Unnecessary
More, more, more seems to be the driving principle of the United States when it comes to nuclear weapons, including the current efforts to spend billions to produce new plutonium pits (despite the fact that we already have thousands of them), which serve as the “trigger” for a nuclear explosion within a nuclear bomb.
According to our friends at Nuclear Watch New Mexico, plutonium pit production is the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) most expensive program ever, with $5 billion to be spent over each of the next six years and at least $60 billion over the next 20 years. Here’s a detailed fact sheet about the issue from our colleagues at the Union of Concerned Scientists.
One way folks are getting engaged on this issue is by attending hearings and submitting comments as part of a mandated National Environmental Impact Assessment (NEIS) comment period that ends July 16, 2026. Our friends at Tri-Valley Cares have great resources and information about this issue and there is a terrific coalition site for those wanting to get involved in the PEIS process.
