Last week the faux-king president announced he was going to ask for $1.5 trillion for the military in the next budget cycle. From what I have read, the war in Iran has been costing us, roughly $1.5 billion a day. For comparison, Biden’s 2024 budget request for the Pentagon was $850 billion. According to the Education Data Initiative all K-12 public schools spent $981.57 billion in fiscal year (FY) 2024.

Then the other day I came across this report by the American Society of Civil Engineers. They give U.S. infrastructure an overall grade every year. This year’s report is 225 pages long. See the scorecard below to see how we are doing. I’m sure you aren’t surprised.

The report says we need slightly more than $9 trillion to bring our infrastructure “into a state of good repair.” According to the folks at Morning Brew (who are citing the World Bank), it is also true that every dollar of infrastructure spending leads to $1.50 in economic activity.

But what about all that potential military spending? Sure it’s great for Northrup Grumman, whose CEO Kathy Warden has taken home more than $20 million in each of the last four years. But what about we the people? According to Morning Brew (again, citing a 2022 study by the World Bank), a 1% increase in military spending leads to a 9% decrease in economic activity.

Are we great yet?