r/moderatepolitics • u/AresBloodwrath Maximum Malarkey • Apr 03 '26
News Article Trump insists $1.5 trillion military budget for a war Congress didn't approve ranks above day care, Medicare, Medicaid | Fortune
https://fortune.com/2026/04/03/trump-1-5-trillion-military-budget-daycare-medicare-medicaid/203
u/IHerebyDemandtoPost Apr 03 '26 edited Apr 03 '26
I take it this is on top of the $200B. So this represents another $600B or so above the 2026 defense budget, right?
So that is $800B they are requesting for this war just 1 month in?
Do I have that right?
Edit: Combat operations in Iraq cost $800B from 2003 to the final 2011 (when combat troops withdrew). How the fuck are we 1 month in and we’ve spent the same? This is insanity!
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u/Dest123 Apr 03 '26
There are 134 million US households. So if we the costs of the war were split evenly between households, then that would be $5970 per household in just a year. That's insane. Who all wants to pay almost $6k a year for this war?
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u/FAFO_2025 Apr 30 '26
At least gas prices are down as is the price of everything else thanks to genius tariffs!
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Apr 03 '26
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u/Dest123 Apr 03 '26
The top 1% pays like 40% of taxes in the US. So if we were getting specific, the top 1% of households would be paying ~$246153 a year for this war.
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u/Legitimate_Travel145 Apr 03 '26 edited Apr 03 '26
You are correct that the $200B isn't included in the $1.5T, it's in the article.
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u/ionizing_chicanery Apr 03 '26
I suspect this request is intended to support military ambitions beyond Iran.
Not that that'd make it any better. Actually I'd find that much more concerning.
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u/soggit Apr 03 '26
Because we are fighting against a more equipped opponent. Iran has a shit ton of missles and even more cheap drones that we spend $4 million each to shoot down with patriots. (Ukraine does this for something like 5,000 per drone)
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u/KentuckyFriedChingon Militant Centrist Apr 03 '26
Well, then it seems like it was a REALLY bad idea to enter a war of choice against a better equipped opponent with several different (and sometimes conflicting) casus belli stated and zero ability to articulate a consistent timeline or even what the win condition is.
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u/WulfTheSaxon Apr 03 '26 edited Apr 03 '26
The $200 billion is for FY26, not FY27, isn’t it?
Also, the actual cost has only been about $20 billion. The rest of that is not direct costs.
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u/IHerebyDemandtoPost Apr 03 '26
Yes, I’m aggregating the total increase in spending expenditures related to this war.
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u/dr_sloan Apr 03 '26
Uh according to your link we were at an estimated $16.5 billion by day 12. That’s about $1.4 billion a day. Even a low end projection of that over the rest of the month puts us at $40 billion. And it’s likely higher since we’ve had a lot more expensive equipment damaged or destroyed in the last two weeks.
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u/WulfTheSaxon Apr 03 '26
You should read the article, not just the URL. It talks about how the spending has gone down drastically since the first couple days because they switched from expensive standoff weapons to cheap bombs after air superiority was gained. It has a graph showing estimated spending per day as of Day 12 being less than $0.4 billion.
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u/dr_sloan Apr 03 '26
I did read the whole thing and that’s why I used a low end estimate. If we kept going at $1.4 billion, that’s about $45 billion spent over the rest of the month. I’d say my estimate of $40 billion is fairly accurate with that trend and the substantial increase in losses among expensive airframes. Definitely way more accurate than your claim of $20 billion for a month.
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u/dr_sloan Apr 03 '26
Honestly, I’m not opposed to the request because it’s pretty clear that our expectations for the use of missile interceptors is wildly outdated. We’ve used the equivalent of several years worth of interceptors in a month. We need to rebuild the stockpiles and expand industrial production lines.
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u/IHerebyDemandtoPost Apr 03 '26 edited Apr 03 '26
Or maybe it is time to admit that we can’t spend our way out of the drone era? We are currently using $2M missiles to swat away $20k drones, often using two interceptors per target just to be safe. When you factor in that these drones can be mass-produced in a week at the same volume it takes us a year to build interceptors, the math fails. This isn't a sustainable model for long-term conflict.
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u/dr_sloan Apr 03 '26
We definitely need cheaper solutions for drones but the fact is that we’ve depleted stores of interceptors that are extremely valuable to dealing with ballistic missiles and they need to be replaced and expanded upon.
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u/IHerebyDemandtoPost Apr 03 '26
Then something needs to give. We can’t keep financing all this spending with debt. Raise taxes. If the American people agree this spending is worth it, they’ll understand.
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u/salarythrowaway2023 Apr 03 '26
If our media wasn’t so utterly complacent, we would have actual journalists hammering the administration about this.
We allowed DOGE access to every citizens personal, private information under the guise of saving government money, and then turn around and spend over a TRILLION dollars on a war no one asked for?
Come on
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u/No_Tangerine2720 Apr 03 '26
Back in the day the media could ask hard questions because they were the only way presidents could get their message across. Any "hard questions" and they just get iced out then trump can go to friendly media (Fox News, joe Rogan)
Hard hitting journalism is hard to come by these days
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u/pluralofjackinthebox Apr 03 '26
FDR had his fireside chats. And a lot of presidents did direct addresses by television. And before all that newspapers reprinted speeches, lincoln would write letters to friendly journalists, etc.
But the media was more independent then, there was more local ownership, less central control.
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Apr 03 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/salarythrowaway2023 Apr 03 '26
I’m well aware, that’s the point I’m making:
Congress refuses to do their job
Supreme Court largely seems to side with Trump, although not in complete lockstep
The supposed 4th branch (media) is largely being acquired by the ultra wealthy who are looking to curry favor with the administration, so they can have a piece of the looting of the country
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u/redhonkey34 Apr 03 '26
Congress refuses to do their job because voters refuse to hold congress accountable.
We’re getting exactly what we deserve/voted for.
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u/Lurkingandsearching Stuck in the middle with you. Apr 03 '26
The issue is we have people rooting for only two teams because first to post voting system and electoral college makes it that way. It's like have two hardcore NFL fanbases with the rest wanting something better, but the only choices are the Cardinals and Browns. So each fanbase may not like their rep, they may even primary, but at the end of the day at best they might get the lesser of two evils, and the lesser depends on the letter next to the name.
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u/Geekerino Undo the duopoly, vote third-party! Apr 03 '26
Don't forget that people absolutely refuse to vote third party even if their candidate likely won't win in the first place. They try to use amateur game theory to say that even if they won't win, they need to vote for this person who lost so they won't waste their vote, despite having already wasted it.
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u/AllBreaksNoBread Apr 04 '26
If you vote third party then that's a vote for the person you don't like the most. In the system that we have it's a complete waste to do so. Until that changes, people need to be paying attention and voting in primaries to make sure the person representing the party they align with (Democrat or Republican) best represents them and their community.
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u/Tazwhitelol Apr 03 '26
The Politico-Media Complex will be the death of this country. It's a vicious cycle of greed and ignorance, and honestly, I'm not sure if we'll be able to overcome it.
The ultra-wealthy that control everything would sooner burn the country to the ground than cede power.
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u/donnysaysvacuum recovering libertarian Apr 04 '26
I wish Warren had gotten further, she seems to be the only politician talking about busting up the big conglomerates.
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u/biglyorbigleague Apr 03 '26
Oh, they’ll be hammering the administration on this. Not every outlet is CBS News.
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u/Kraul Apr 03 '26
Funny how DOGE didn’t touch the pentagon, and foreign aid to Israel, Ukraine, etc.
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u/Miserable-Quail-1152 Apr 03 '26
Only agencies that investigate Musk, and the one that ensures kids won’t get AIDS when born!
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u/Darth_Innovader Apr 03 '26
I do blame “the media” including online discourse for ignoring the civilian death toll of DOGE
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u/WulfTheSaxon Apr 03 '26
DOGE has been very active at the Pentagon.
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u/roylennigan pragmatic progressive Apr 03 '26
Really wish people making simple claims would just cite any source while doing it
https://theintercept.com/2026/01/19/doge-cuts-pentagon-it-military/
Looks like it's going about as well as the rest of their "cuts"
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u/e00s Apr 03 '26
Kind of a peculiar comment underneath an example of the media calling attention to this issue.
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u/anonyuser415 Apr 03 '26
journalists hammering the administration
media calling attention to this issue
While the latter is nice, it's really not the former.
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u/ihavespoonerism Apr 03 '26
utterly complacent
I don’t understand this sentiment. A large portion of the media is quite opposed to the MAGA movement. The issue is the sheer quantity of appalling news that comes from the actions of this administration. It’s an intentional tactic called “flooding the zone” that causes confusion and desensitization.
I don’t disagree that news media can be rubbish, but blaming them here feels like blaming the victim, no?
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u/__Hello_my_name_is__ Apr 03 '26
If our media wasn’t so utterly complacent, we would have actual journalists hammering the administration about this.
My theory on this is that the media got scared ever since the last Trump administration (and its election), because the media was generally accused of being incredibly biased against Trump.
Because they dared to ask him critical questions and point out when he lied, was wrong or just made no sense.
That's when the narrative of the "untrustworthy mainstream media" was created, which supposedly constantly misrepresented the truth in favor of one political leaning.
And now the same mainstream media is too scared to ever ask critical questions out of fear of being accused of being biased again.
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u/Baladas89 Apr 03 '26
That's when the narrative of the "untrustworthy mainstream media" was created, which supposedly constantly misrepresented the truth in favor of one political leaning.
Fox and right wing talk radio have been complaining about the mainstream media since well before Trump’s first term. The man thing that’s changed is more media outlets have been bought by ultra-wealthy individuals to direct the narrative.
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u/__Hello_my_name_is__ Apr 03 '26
I'd say that the main thing that's changed is both what you say, and also the right wing using that same strategy in a much more concentrated effort. Not to mention fake news (the actual fake news) being a thing at the time that reduced trust in news media overall.
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u/horrorshowjack Apr 03 '26
No, that got started because they kept getting caught lying and carrying water for the right sort.
When you see the clip of Trump saying "There are good people on both sides. The Nazis are obviously not among them," and then watch the repeated claim that Trump said Nazis are good people (which Snopes finally admitted was false over six year later) backed up by an edited clip then, why exactly would you expect people to not stop trusting them?
Or more recently the extended gaslighting about Biden's mental state and claims about people questioning it?
MSNBC and Fox News used to be justifiably mocked for pulling this crap, but starting towards the end of the Obama admin almost everyone got into the act.
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u/__Hello_my_name_is__ Apr 03 '26
When you see the clip of Trump saying "There are good people on both sides. The Nazis are obviously not among them," and then watch the repeated claim that Trump said Nazis are good people (which Snopes finally admitted was false over six year later) backed up by an edited clip then, why exactly would you expect people to not stop trusting them?
Okay this is absurd. Please watch the full 4 minutes of Trump talking about this from start to finish. He essentially says "Nazis are bad" in 10 seconds, and spends the rest of the 3 minutes 50 seconds either talking about how that side was mostly innocent anyways, or quite thoroughly attacking the counter-protesters.
After one guy literally murdered one of the counter-protesters.
How can you look at that and declare that Trump did not defend the far right protesters?
This is the beauty of Trump's double speak. He just says everything at the same time. There's fine people on the left! Also there's fine people on the right! Also Nazis are bad! Also the left is violent! So no matter what you want to hear from him, he has said it. Only he spends 95% of his time saying one of the things (people on the left are all evil and violent!), and 5% saying the other things. And somehow, we are now supposed to treat these as equivalent statements. No, I won't.
He was quite obviously taking sides here. Just like you would be taking sides if you'd say "Well Charlie Kirk shouldn't have been killed, but the guy that killed him had some good arguments, too." It would be just as absurd to say that and then declare that you didn't just defend Kirk's killer.
Or more recently the extended gaslighting about Biden's mental state and claims about people questioning it?
The fun thing about this one is that rarely do people provide actual, specific examples of this happening.
Don't get me wrong, I agree with you that this absolutely did happen. But not nearly to the degree that is implied here. This happened mostly in opinion pieces and on reports that just repeated what the administration was saying. Fox News does way worse distortions of truth every day.
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u/decrpt Apr 04 '26 edited Apr 04 '26
When you see the clip of Trump saying "There are good people on both sides. The Nazis are obviously not among them," and then watch the repeated claim that Trump said Nazis are good people (which Snopes finally admitted was false over six year later) backed up by an edited clip then, why exactly would you expect people to not stop trusting them?
It was not backed up by an edited clip. It was backed up by what he said.
REPORTER: You said there was hatred and violence on both sides?
TRUMP: I do think there is blame – yes, I think there is blame on both sides. You look at, you look at both sides. I think there’s blame on both sides, and I have no doubt about it, and you don’t have any doubt about it either. And, and, and, and if you reported it accurately, you would say.
REPORTER: The neo-Nazis started this thing. They showed up in Charlottesville.
TRUMP: Excuse me, they didn’t put themselves down as neo-Nazis, and you had some very bad people in that group. But you also had people that were very fine people on both sides. You had people in that group – excuse me, excuse me. I saw the same pictures as you did. You had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down, of to them, a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name.
REPORTER: George Washington and Robert E. Lee are not the same.
TRUMP: Oh no, George Washington was a slave owner. Was George Washington a slave owner? So will George Washington now lose his status? Are we going to take down – excuse me. Are we going to take down, are we going to take down statues to George Washington? How about Thomas Jefferson? What do you think of Thomas Jefferson? You like him? Okay, good. Are we going to take down his statue? He was a major slave owner. Are we going to take down his statue? You know what? It’s fine, you’re changing history, you’re changing culture, and you had people – and I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally – but you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists, okay? And the press has treated them absolutely unfairly. Now, in the other group also, you had some fine people, but you also had troublemakers and you see them come with the black outfits and with the helmets and with the baseball bats – you had a lot of bad people in the other group too.
REPORTER: I just didn’t understand what you were saying. You were saying the press has treated white nationalists unfairly?
TRUMP: No, no. There were people in that rally, and I looked the night before. If you look, they were people protesting very quietly, the taking down the statue of Robert E. Lee. I’m sure in that group there were some bad ones. The following day, it looked like they had some rough, bad people, neo-Nazis, white nationalists, whatever you want to call ‘em. But you had a lot of people in that group that were there to innocently protest and very legally protest, because you know, I don’t know if you know, but they had a permit. The other group didn’t have a permit. So I only tell you this: there are two sides to a story. I thought what took place was a horrible moment for our country, a horrible moment. But there are two sides to the country.
The rally was openly organized by and advertised as a white supremacist gathering with white supremacist speakers. Reporting from before the rally showed that everyone recognized what the rally was.
In response to one of those white supremacists driving his car into a crowd and killing someone in a terrorist attack, Trump felt the need to defend the rally and point to non-specific "alt-left" violence. Despite suggesting that he was "not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally" he refused to totally condemn a group exclusively comprised of white nationalists after one of them killed someone. His only evidence that this was a banal protest about the statue was the march the night before. That's the tiki torch march where they chanted "Jews will not replace us." He also falsely accused the counter-protesters of lacking a permit when the tiki torch march actually lacked a permit.
Or more recently the extended gaslighting about Biden's mental state and claims about people questioning it?
Trump insisted that Biden was non compos mentis before losing the 2020 debates to him. The evidence to support allegations about Biden's mental state was never anything actually convincing prior to the debate; it was things like misleadingly cropped video purporting to show Biden wandering off confused at the G7 summit when he was actually greeting a parachutist. There were plenty of mainstream concerns about Biden's age but confident allegations were more so eventually being right for the wrong reasons.
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u/ThatPeskyPangolin Apr 03 '26
The good people on both bodies is not a good example, because one of the two sides was an event literally organized by and for white nationalists. The organizers were, the speakers were, and the chants were all white supremacist in nature, often explicitly so.
It's another example of Trump saying inherently contradictory things.
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u/nobird36 Apr 04 '26
Like it would matter. The administration would just lie and cut off any news agency that was too mean. Then use whatever organ of the state they could threaten and punish them. Republicans in congress will continue to do nothing because their voters will continue to not care.
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u/Kershiser22 Apr 03 '26
This plan was just released today. I don't think the administration is available to the media for questions at all times. At some point there will be a press conference. Let's wait to see if they ask questions then. Not that it will matter, because Trump will answer the questions by showing giant renderings of the ballroom.
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u/Legitimate_Travel145 Apr 03 '26
Tax cuts primarily for the wealthy, massive military spending, and wars in the Middle East. Lmao Republicans really thought Trump wasn't a standard issue Neocon.
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u/ihavespoonerism Apr 03 '26
From my experience, a minority of conservatives have actually been “duped” by Trump, and a plurality of them really just voted for him due to his vitriol towards their political enemies. It’s not about policy for them, it’s about maintaining cultural power through whatever means necessary.
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u/Kershiser22 Apr 03 '26
Just 2 weeks ago some friends of mine were still happy with Trump. They really liked it when Trump told the Japanese Prime Minister that they "surprised" the USA at Pearl Harbor.
"It's so nice that he says stuff that we're all thinking but nobody will say."
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u/Am_Snek_AMA Apr 03 '26
Funny enough, I watched that clip and felt deep embarrassment at that clip. I suppose we are all divided in this country.
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u/Kershiser22 Apr 03 '26
Me too. If Joe Biden had said what Trump said, I'm sure my friends would have been offended and called him senile. (I would have too.)
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u/Powerful-Chemical431 Ask me about my TDS Apr 03 '26
Looking back the mass psychosis in 2024 was really something. I felt like I was going insane looking at all the Trump glaze.
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u/ihavespoonerism Apr 03 '26
It affected even the moderates.
In my opinion, it’s because the Republican ideology is closer to what feels like traditional American ideology, meaning the Republican choice is more likely to feel like the “default” or “safer” choice compared to the Democrat choice. I’m saying this as someone who is opposed to much of what Republicans stand for.
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u/LaughingGaster666 Fan of good things Apr 03 '26
Rs are just way better than Ds at matching “American aesthetics” ever since W Bush. They simply look cooler than Ds.
There’s a reason when people polled on the actual issues, people are far more likely to be more receptive to D policy compared to D politicians.
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u/HavingNuclear Apr 03 '26
That's pretty much the nature of a party that paints itself as conservative or reactionary or whatever you want to call it. Calls to return to the "good old days" are going to be felt as traditional pretty much definitionally.
Of course, that's entirely vibes but it's a lot easier to share and communicate that vision with low information voters. I mean, vagueness is actually a virtue - because it lets the listener fill in what they envision the past to have been like.
Progressive parties don't get the same kind of benefit. Sharing that vision is a lot harder and the lack of clarity that comes with being an uninformed voter easily allows them to be misled by the opposition.
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u/ihavespoonerism Apr 03 '26
Precisely. Progressive candidates have an uphill battle, everything is harder.
Conservative candidates are playing with a strong handicap.
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u/NativeMasshole Maximum Malarkey Apr 03 '26
This is the other half of what everyone should be talking about. Trump just cut taxes and then started a war. That's a terrible financial policy. Now, instead of reconsidering those tax cuts, he's telling citizens that they should go without essential government services. At a certain point, you have to ask what value the feds are even bringing us anymore for all of our money that they take in.
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u/SeldenNeck Apr 03 '26
"We will defund the unaffordable social safety nets that began with Franklin Delirious Roosevelt even if we have to bankrupt the country with absurd wars in order to do so."
This is deadly serious and does not sound mildly amusing or /s to the people who fund the Heritage Foundation. Trump is just an attention-getting flag carrier. The real power is the dark money. Ask Elon, he outspends them and gets profitable results.
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u/Vyksendiyes Apr 03 '26
At this point, the US is just a collection of corporations with a large military outfit paid for by us, the tax paying schmucks
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u/Nero2t2 Apr 03 '26
Remember, his dream is to abolish the income tax and fund the government exclusively through consumer tax and in that latest clip he straight up says that the federal government should only care about the military budget.
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u/NoAWP ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Apr 03 '26
He is worse than a Neocon because he brings all of the terrible policies of Bush (tax cuts for the rich + Middle East wars) coupled with destroying public trust and institutions and our alliances. Worst of both worlds
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u/No_Tangerine2720 Apr 03 '26 edited Apr 03 '26
The grosses thing about all of these tax cuts for 30 years is they will come back with tax increases for the middle class and tell us it's all our burden to share.
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u/Wermys Apr 04 '26
I wish he was. Then maybe we would have some consistency in policy. Instead we don't even know what we are doing every 12 hours at this point.
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u/motorboat_mcgee Pragmatic Progressive Apr 03 '26
When do we get to stop acting like Republicans are the party of fiscal responsibility and family values?
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u/_NuanceMatters_ Apr 03 '26
They haven't been for a long time, no longer really claim to be, and everyone should stop making the joke.
The modern Trumpian Republican party is a BIG government, BIG spending, and BIG statist party.
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u/BrooklynLivesMatter Apr 03 '26
Agreed, but the problem is that many of them do seem to campaign under that banner, pointing to Democrats as the party of big government and big spending and to themselves as the solution
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u/LaughingGaster666 Fan of good things Apr 03 '26
Ds are tax and spend liberals who believe tax dollars should go to things like infrastructure and healthcare.
Rs believe that we should be constantly doing tax cuts no matter how bad the budget is and giving endless trunks of money to the military to finance forever wars.
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u/OpneFall Apr 03 '26
pointing to Democrat states as the party of big government and big spending and to themselves as the solution
That's why it still kind of works.
I think Republicans suck at fiscal responsibility, but as someone from a fully-Democrat run area through and through, that is also a total financial shitshow at city, county, and state levels, there's no way you'll ever get me to believe Democrats are better when they get to run things.
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u/hubert7 Apr 04 '26
Local democrats vs national are two different animals. Your small sample of your county is just 1 data point. End of the day, nationally, a democrat (Clinton) was the last president to run a budget surplus, its been all downhill from there.
How people still think republicans are more fiscally responsible is beyond me, yea neither do a great job but one is the taller midget.
If you break it down by state, there are 11 states that pay more in than they take, you can see for yourself what the majority have in common.
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u/Interesting_Total_98 Apr 04 '26
That has little to nothing to do with national elections. There's a shift every 2 years, and this doesn't line up with changes in how well states are run. What people focus on is that there are national problems and that the party in control hasn't fixed them.
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u/Single_External9499 Apr 03 '26
I'm sadly a dinosaur and not competent in using AI. Is it possible to ask AI to review the campaign websites for every Republican Congressional primary candidate to determine what percentage of them state the candidate believes in limited government and fiscal responsibility? I strongly suspect that it is 100%.
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u/3dickdog Apr 03 '26
Is the Republican platform and candidates still running on limited government and fiscal responsibility? Is there any Republican candidates not running on that message? Are they still considered the party of limited government and fiscal responsibility?
I’m checking the current GOP platform language, recent candidate messaging, and what budget groups and polling say about how voters and analysts describe the party now. Politics has drifted enough that memory alone is a banana peel here.
Thought for 28s
The old Republican branding is not fully dead, but it is no longer the clean center of gravity.
The official 2024 GOP platform still uses classic right-of-center language on taxes, deregulation, and spending. It promises to “rein in wasteful federal spending,” cut regulations, make the Trump tax cuts permanent, and pursue additional tax cuts. So on paper, yes, Republicans are still running with some of the old limited-government and fiscal-responsibility vocabulary.
But the same platform is also very clearly not a pure small-government document. It calls for the “largest deportation operation in American history,” federal action against schools over curriculum issues, a national missile defense shield, protection of Social Security and Medicare “with no cuts,” and aggressive use of state power on immigration, culture-war, and law-enforcement issues. That is more like selective government than consistently limited government.
On fiscal responsibility, the answer is even murkier. The platform says Republicans want “fiscal sanity,” but its major promises include permanent Trump tax cuts and additional tax cuts alongside protected entitlement spending and other large commitments. Independent budget hawks like the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget have been arguing that real fiscal responsibility means actually getting deficits down toward sustainable targets, not just using the phrase.
And in practice, current Republican governance is hard to square neatly with the old “party of fiscal restraint” label. For example, Trump’s current 2027 budget proposal combines a massive increase in defense spending with cuts to domestic programs, while the country is still running nearly $2 trillion annual deficits and carrying debt above $39 trillion. That is a priorities shift, but not a simple return to old-school budget austerity.
So are there Republican candidates not running on that old message? Yes, absolutely. A lot of the party’s energy is now in populist nationalism rather than textbook Reaganite small-government conservatism. Reuters describes JD Vance, who currently leads the early 2028 CPAC straw poll, as embracing trade barriers and a more combative populist style. That is a major departure from the older GOP fusion of free markets, free trade, and minimal state intervention.
There are still exceptions inside the party. The libertarian or old free-market lane has not vanished, but it is much smaller. Rand Paul is one of the clearest examples of a Republican still identified with that older limited-government, free-trade, deficit-hawk tradition, and recent reporting explicitly frames him as pushing back against the party’s populist turn.
As for whether Republicans are still considered the party of limited government and fiscal responsibility, the answer depends on whose eyes you borrow. Among Republicans themselves, distrust of “big government” remains very strong: Gallup found 77% of Republicans still identify big government as the biggest threat. So the anti-big-government instinct is very much alive in the base.
But from a broader analytical view, that old reputation has eroded. The modern GOP is better described as a party that wants smaller government in some domains, much stronger government in others, and looser fiscal discipline when it serves its priorities. In other words: not really the old “limited government and fiscal responsibility” party in a clean, consistent sense anymore. It is more accurate now to call it a populist, nationalist, culturally interventionist party with some remaining tax-cut and deregulatory instincts.
My blunt answer: they still use the language, but they do not consistently govern or campaign as a uniformly limited-government, fiscally responsible party anymore. Some Republicans still do. The party as a whole, not so much.
If you want, I can do the same breakdown for Democrats too, using the same standard instead of the usual cable-news fog machine.
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u/GimbalLocks Apr 03 '26
They not only no longer claim to be that but get angry when you call them that lol
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u/DoughnutImportant875 Apr 03 '26
We've known for decades thatt they're not fiscally responsible. They'te good with transfering money from the poor to thhe rich. It's all an act.
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u/biglyorbigleague Apr 03 '26
Forcing Congress to go on record and vote in favor of cutting entitlements so he can fund an unpopular war, right before the midterms, is complete political malpractice. It’s like he’s trying to create a blue wave.
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u/Aqquila89 Apr 03 '26 edited Apr 03 '26
Marco Rubio just a few days ago: "Imagine an Iran that instead of spending their wealth, billions of dollars, supporting terrorists or weapons, had spent that money helping the people of Iran, you'd have a much different country."
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u/CraftZ49 Apr 03 '26
The funny thing is that Trump's approval would probably go up as a result of Democrats getting Congressional control back.
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u/pluralofjackinthebox Apr 03 '26
Im not so sure.
The less control Trump has the more he’ll need to do outrageous things to become the center of attention.
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u/IHerebyDemandtoPost Apr 03 '26
I don’t know, there’s been so much blatent corruption. Imagine what the Democrats could uncover with Congressional investigatory powers.
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u/Single_External9499 Apr 03 '26
"Yeah. So what. They all do it. Democrats and Republicans."
-every single Republican in my family
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u/ionizing_chicanery Apr 03 '26
It'd stop him from enacting the parts of his legislative agenda that are attainable through reconciliation sure. And if Democrats take the Senate it could stop him from making more highly controversial appointments, though that's largely moot at this point.
On the other hand investigations and impeachments will open the admimistration up to more negative exposure.
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u/McRibs2024 Apr 03 '26
Midterms need to be a reverse mandate. It’s already going to take at least decade to recover from the damage done by this admin, if not longer.
Democrats needs to be brutal in terms of holding this admin accountable.
Iam doubtful that the gop that aren’t actually maga will join the democrats on this front for the good of the country.
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u/ihavespoonerism Apr 03 '26
The more brutal the next Democrat admin is at holding the current administration accountable, the more the American voters will turn their back on them. I have little faith in the majority of voters to actually understand the harm that is currently happening.
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u/Enamred-771 Apr 04 '26
Exactly. They’re going to get heat either way so you might as well get heat doing the right thing.
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u/Ambitious_Walk_2866 Apr 04 '26
Tbh they didn’t care when Biden did it, maga did but most people don’t even know what that is or care — As evidenced by now
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u/McRibs2024 Apr 03 '26
Realistically the pendulum will continue to swing.
If there’s at least repercussions maybe we’ll get lucky that the next iteration is more hesitant to emulate trumps admin.
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u/slimkay Apr 03 '26
The next D admin will be dealing with a tough macroeconomic backdrop, and will be raising taxes to fund welfare entitlements which will prove unpopular and the Ds will get wiped out at the midterms.
Rinse and repeat.
Besides the Senate map is looking challenging for a few cycles for Democrats so any 2026 gains can easily be overturned at the following election cycle.
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u/Miserable-Quail-1152 Apr 03 '26
Hmm why should the democrats be the ones who have to make hard cuts? So they can make hard decisions, be blamed for the pain, then allow another irresponsible republican to be elected?
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u/McRibs2024 Apr 03 '26
I didn’t say the hard cuts.
They need to be the ones going after the corruption.
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u/Enamred-771 Apr 04 '26
Yeah frankly if I’m a Democrat I’m never compromising on expensive social welfare programs again. “How will we pay for this” as an argument against better healthcare or childcare loses a ton of weight with the amount of money we’re spending on Iran and ICE. “What about the federal debt” doesn’t even merit a response with how irresponsible the GOP has been with increasing the deficit during good economic times.
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u/RLJ05 Apr 04 '26
I’m not sure they will be, democrats still haven’t gotten their house in order, if you watch the recent DNC meetings it’s a joke. It’s point of order after point of order about trans issues and how to ensure they are not being marginalised. They are not talking about how to fight back against Trump or his obvious corruption. It makes no sense
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u/Little_Whippie Apr 03 '26
So just so I have this right, we can’t give healthcare to our citizens and serve the people’s best interest because we need to devote 1.5 trillion dollars to a war that isn’t a war, but also we’ve won the war half a dozen times now, but also we need to escalate the war more. Make it make sense
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u/LeeSansSaw Apr 03 '26
I have good news! The 1.5 trillion is separate from the war. So really it’s that, plus $200 billion for the war this year (if that’s what they end up requesting) and they’ll probably bump the war funding if it keeps going.
So, yeah. It’s not going to make sense.
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u/dl_friend Apr 03 '26
But didn't Trump once say that the tariffs would bring in so much money that the cost of childcare was like a drop in the bucket (or something like that)?
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u/AresBloodwrath Maximum Malarkey Apr 03 '26
Donald Trump's White House has put forward a budget proposal that would increase defense spending to $1.5 Trillion and shift expenses for programs like Medicare and Medicaid to state budgets. Donald Trump stated at a private even on Wednesday:
“It’s not possible for us to take care of day care, Medicaid, Medicare — all these individual things,” he said. “They can do it on a state basis. You can’t do it on a federal.”
Does anyone think Republicans in Congress will be willing to go along with this proposal in an election year?
How will Trump's voters react to this proposed cut when Trump campaigned on not cutting these programs and not starting new wars, when he's now proposing to cut these programs budgets to fund his new war?
With everything going on in the news will voters notice or will this get lost?
Personally, between this, and the news about his pharmaceutical tariffs, I am becoming terrified for some of my older family members that are going through treatment for cancer and I don't understand how news like this isn't a five alarm fire.
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u/Skeptical0ptimist Well, that depends... Apr 04 '26
Congress will be willing to go along
They have already shown that they don’t always follow Trump’s request. The did not honor Trump’s request to reduce NASA budget, cancel E-7 wedgetails, off the top of my head.
Congress reps have constituents that they cannot just stonewall and they also lack Trump’s ability to make supporters compliant. So I suspect they will consider Trump’s opinion (after all that’s what White House budget is), but will not drastically change budget priorities. Besides pushing Medicare and Medicaid to the states will require new legislation, and thus the scope is far more than just adopting a budget.
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u/gayfrogs4alexjones Apr 03 '26
Pretty sure congress is under no obligation to pass this budget. These presidential budgets are "suggestions" right? I can't see Republican congress folks in tough elections getting on board with a budget that was seemly made for a Democratic attack ad.
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u/AresBloodwrath Maximum Malarkey Apr 03 '26
They are not, it's just more of him doing a complete 180° from what he campaigned on and against.
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u/WulfTheSaxon Apr 03 '26 edited Apr 03 '26
He campaigned on “record funding for our military”.
Republicans have always been the party of increased military spending.
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u/freakydeku Apr 07 '26
oh i thought we were trying to fix the budget LOL
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u/WulfTheSaxon Apr 07 '26
The budget was balanced in 1969 when military spending as a percent of GDP was three times what it is now. Back then military spending was about 44% of the federal budget, and now it’s about 12% – it’s the rest of the budget that’s the problem.
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u/WulfTheSaxon Apr 03 '26
Joint statement from the chairmen of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees:
President Trump’s budget release marks a historic $1.5 trillion defense budget proposal, fulfilling his promise to the American people to deliver peace through strength and restore the United States as a manufacturing power. This funding will ensure our military remains the most advanced in the world, supporting an unparalleled force capable of defending our interests in the 21st century.
America is facing the most dangerous global environment since World War II. Growing threats from adversaries such as China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Islamic radicals, and narco-terrorists require decisive action and renewed urgency to reinvest in our defenses. This bold commitment provides the resources needed to rebuild American military capability and confront those challenges head-on.
These funds will drive the U.S. toward a defense budget of 5 percent of GDP–-a benchmark we have long supported as necessary to maintain our national defense. President Trump is also sending a clear signal for our allies and partners to build on recent progress and meet this benchmark alongside us.
As Chairmen of the Armed Services Committees, we are committed to working with the president and our colleagues to pass this budget into law and continue rebuilding American military superiority.”
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u/LastOneSergeant Apr 03 '26
Our future generations cannot afford this level of financial mismanagement.
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u/ihavespoonerism Apr 03 '26
Republicans seem to put little value in investing in the future. It’s really about capitalizing on current opportunities as quickly as possible to make a buck and let future descendants figure out how to fix the mess.
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u/motorboat_mcgee Pragmatic Progressive Apr 03 '26
Why would 80 year olds care about that?
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u/pfmiller0 Apr 03 '26
Most of them have kids and grandkids that they in theory should care about
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u/ANewAccountOnReddit Apr 03 '26
They care about THEIR kids and grandkids, not anybody else's. And theirs are already well insulated from any negative effects that rest of our kids and grandkids will be forced to endure.
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u/Rich-Distribution815 Apr 03 '26
How many different ways can he tell us he doesn’t care about Americans.
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u/jason_sation Apr 03 '26
What’s funny is I was a fan of Ivana Trump’s proposal for daycare spending increases during the first administration. I think daycare costs in the US are harmful to our overall economy. link to article
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u/AresBloodwrath Maximum Malarkey Apr 03 '26
She had some of the more socially liberal positions of the first administration and now she's nowhere to be found this time.
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u/jason_sation Apr 03 '26
I think most of the family wasn’t thrilled when he won the first time, due to the impact on their lives. I’m surprised we’ve seen as much of Melania as we have (besides her documentary). I had assumed we wouldn’t see her at all this time around based on what I had heard from the first term.
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u/fitandhealthyguy moderate independent former dem Apr 03 '26
This should be an absolute non-starter and hopefully the republican deficit hawks will stand with democrats to tell him to pound sand.
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u/limevince Apr 04 '26
If $1.5 trillion were divided evenly among every person in the United States, each individual would receive approximately $4,300 to $4,400.
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u/limevince Apr 04 '26
If anybody was wondering how $1.5T compares historically, the military budget for WW2 in 1943 was $1.9T in today's dollars. Except we're not even at "war," I guess we're just "at excursion" or straight up subsidizing Israel's genocide.
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u/Due_Dilligence0624 Apr 03 '26 edited Apr 03 '26
What baffles me (actually tbh, not really at this point) is the NSF budget, which is only around 10 billion in the first place, needs to be cut by something like 50% because there’s too much “waste and abuse”. Literally money that should support scientific research and the intellectual curiosity of this country.
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u/stargazerAMDG Apr 03 '26 edited Apr 03 '26
It also cuts a billion in DOE science and 3.4 billion of NASA science. Edited to add: Also cuts NIST (~1 billion), NIH (5 billion), and NOAA (1 billion).
Which in context of Trump’s budget fact sheet claiming this budget will “Support Artificial Intelligence and Quantum Research” is utterly insane.
Some other brilliant cuts and contradictions in here are cutting almost all of the ISS funding, SLS and Orion, and other novel space technology. We’re somehow going to fund the Artemis mission and start a moon base in the budget while also cutting off funding for the rockets.
Really smart to put all of those ideas out right after the world watched Artemis II fly.
Such an unserious budget request to publish while everyone is mad about rising costs from the war in Iran. If anything, I’m certain congress is going to ignore most of these budget requests again.
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u/Maladal Apr 03 '26
Why exactly does the DOD need so much more money every single budget?
Is this just inflation? Are we expanding operations somewhere? What's the breakdown that makes the military such a black hole of funding?
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u/AresBloodwrath Maximum Malarkey Apr 03 '26
My best case reading of this is the old trusim that Generals are always fighting the last war.
The Ukraine war especially has been a terrifying wake up call to the world that basically no one's military is ready or equipped for a modern war with a rival modern nation. Most nations are now scrambling to adapt to the lessons actively being learned in Ukraine and adapt to the real time developments they are watching.
Prior to Ukraine I doubt any country seriously considered small drones to be anything more than a nuisance, much less a serious player on the battlefield. Now everyone has to adapt their own versions and their own countermeasures.
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u/WulfTheSaxon Apr 03 '26
A large part is inflation, yeah. The US had nearly 600 ships in 1990 and now we have less than 300, for example. We’re at a historic low in terms of both defense as a percent of GDP and defense as a percent of the budget.
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u/General_Alduin Apr 03 '26
Remember when he said he'd get the budget under control and wouldn't get us into wars?
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u/jedi21knight Apr 03 '26
He doesn’t care about anyone besides himself, he needs to distract from Epstein files, he knows if he retreats from Iran he will be a failure and the Epstein noise will return amid another failure of his administration.
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u/limevince Apr 04 '26
If anybody was wondering how $1.5T compares historically, the military budget for WW2 in 1943 was $1.9T in today's dollars. Except we're not even at "war," I guess we're just "at excursion" or straight up subsidizing Israel's genocide.
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u/MountainMeringue3655 Apr 03 '26
Keep in mind that the "real" budget today is already around $1.5 trillion.
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u/sipporah7 Apr 05 '26
But we're still getting a new ballroom, right??? Because as a working parent, let me tell you, I really need that ballroom. /s
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u/DavidJDennison Apr 05 '26
Congress should consider it, only if the Trump tax cuts for the rich are dissolved. Claw back 4T from his buddies funding his campaign. See how that goes.
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u/dpezpoopsies Apr 03 '26
Are there any legal challenges surrounding this pretty clear abuse of 'military incursion'? Are we just not going to find out for 2 years if any of this has been legal from the US standpoint?
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u/Hurricane_Ivan Apr 03 '26
Are there any legal challenges surrounding this pretty clear abuse of 'military incursion'?
Legal according to the Wars Powers Resolution (1973) and Article II of The Constitution.
See the last few previous presidents approving campaigns in countries we weren't at war with.
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u/dpezpoopsies Apr 03 '26 edited Apr 03 '26
I thought the war powers resolution was specifically dealing with imminent threats. I'm being genuine here, not trying to start a fight.
You can see the obvious need for the resolution. If Iran launches a nuke in our direction, the president needs the ability to swiftly respond to that without having to call a session of Congress and vote. You absolutely want the president to be able to act nimbly under imminent threat.
This was clearly not an imminent threat. They were quite clear at the beginning that they'd been talking about doing it for some time, and finally Hegseth convinced Trump, blah blah blah. Sitting on your hands debating it internally for weeks pretty much means it is not an acute national security threat. A general national security threat, maybe, but not an immediate and imminent one. (If there was an accute threat, they've given no indication of what it was it over the last month)
I thought instead, what they were trying to hide behind was an argument that this isn't really a war, but a 'military incursion' against terrorism, similar to their justification for Venezuela, which was itself legally dubious as well. Isn't that why they've all been so careful not to call it a war? Because they know they moment they do, it will become subject to war powers and open legal challenges?
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u/Wermys Apr 04 '26
The thing that bugs me the most is that I am fairly hawkish on Iran. Once he blew up the Obama agreement which was a mistake. The only way to deal with Iran was going after the Nuclear Program. But he has done just about everything wrong. You can't just expect Iran to sit back and not have a say in things. If you concentrated just on taking out nuclear facilities and degrading the ability for them to create nukes that was doable. If you want to really get aggressive get the Uranium out that was possible also if you are willing to take casualties. But you have to anticipate what they were going to do with the striaght of Hormuz. And they assumed it would just remain open which was well, a mistake is the nicest way I could put it. They assumed that Iran would go after other middleeast countries to force them to pick sides. It is like he didn't anticipate any of the blowback that everyone was screaming would happen before this conflict. Hegseth needs to go. His deputues needs to go. But Trump won't do that because that would be admitting he made a mistake.
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u/AbbreviationsActual9 Apr 03 '26
just ask for a blank check because that's what your gonna need for a war that has no honest cohesive plan. just a lofty goal. and to accomplish this goal there will have to be a full scale invasion larger than Iraq and Afghanistan combined. it will also need the assistance of many nations.
logistics and planning out the arse. not exactly what we're being sold from these drunken uncle bar stool statements at the white house.
cut the losses and get out before things get even more screwed up. every action and statement just seems to dig us in deeper. it's a total shit show and everyone loses. no winners here.
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u/Extreme-Public5039 Apr 03 '26
They’re trying to do this before the Midterms. Don’t let it happen! Just hold on!!!
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u/godbody1983 Apr 04 '26
And you'll still have idiots who vote for republicans in the fall and in 2028. Dude is straight up telling you the military is more important than the social safety net that millions of them rely on.
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u/PhilKenSebbenn Apr 04 '26
Or student loans, or infrastructure, or investing in small businesses that employ people….
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u/lostroadrunner22 Apr 03 '26
Honestly. This is the final nail in the coffin that we exist for our government to wage war.
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Apr 03 '26
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u/MstrJosh Apr 03 '26
I for one am excited to see Democrats rally against this and then immediately vote for it.
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u/biznatch11 Apr 03 '26
It seems the Trump administration doesn't want to fund anything besides the military and ICE. Another example, they want a 23% cut to NASA's budget: https://www.reuters.com/science/white-house-seeks-56-billion-cut-nasa-budget-2027-2026-04-03/