$1 Billion Daily Cost of Trump’s Iran War Could Fund Food Aid, Healthcare for Tens of Millions

“Medicare for All, or endless foreign wars?” asked Democratic US Senate candidate Graham Platner. “Anyone in the House or Senate giving the wrong answer should lose their seat.”

By Jake Johnson, Common Dreams

The daily price tag of US President Donald Trump’s illegal war on Iran would be enough to cover the daily costs of federal nutrition assistance for more than 40 million Americans, as well as daily Medicaid costs for the roughly 16 million people expected to lose health coverage due to the Republican budget package that Trump signed into law last year.

That’s according to an analysis published Thursday by the National Priorities Project (NPP), which noted that—on an annual basis—the estimated $1 billion-per-day cost of the US war on Iran is “higher than the appropriated budget of any federal agency except the Pentagon itself.”

“That money could cover the things we need here at home,” wrote NPP’s Alliyah Lusuegro and Lindsay Koshgarian. “The tradeoff is clear: the Trump administration—backed by several members of Congress—is cutting healthcare and food assistance for millions of families while spending $1 billion a day on this emerging war.”

“The question isn’t whether the money exists—it’s what we choose to spend it on,” they wrote.

In a social media post on Friday, Democratic US Senate candidate Graham Platner—a veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars—posed what he characterized as a “simple question” to members of Congress: “Medicare for All, or endless foreign wars?”

“Anyone in the House or Senate giving the wrong answer,” Platner added, “should lose their seat.”

“The cost of the war in Iraq ended up being almost $3 trillion. This could be astronomical, easily.”

The Pentagon’s early estimate of the Iran war’s cost was first reported by Atlantic journalist Nancy Youssef, who cited an unnamed congressional official.

In a separate analysis released earlier this week, the Center for Strategic and International Studies put the cost of the first 100 hours of the Iran war at $3.7 billion, or $891.4 million per day. The Pentagon is reportedly planning to ask Congress to approve at least $50 billion in supplemental funding for the war, a historically unpopular assault that lawmakers did not authorize.

“Without support from the American people, Donald Trump led the country into a reckless war with Iran that has taken the lives of six service members and injured several others,” said Kendall Witmer, rapid response director for the Democratic National Committee. “Now, the White House is scrambling to come up with a plan as the cost of Trump’s war skyrockets. Working families are already struggling with soaring prices and a hollowed-out job market—they can’t afford Trump’s war of choice.”

On Thursday, Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) asked the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office to conduct a thorough analysis of the financial costs of the Iran war, including scenarios in which the assault drags on for more than five weeks and the US launches a ground invasion.

“Taxpayers deserve a nonpartisan estimate of the financial and economic impact of President Trump’s reckless war in Iran that has already led to the tragic deaths of American servicemembers,” said Boyle. “American families don’t want billions of dollars wasted on an unnecessary war—they want lower costs and affordable healthcare.”

Koshgarian of NPP told CNN that the costs of war are “highly unpredictable, and so we won’t know the cost of it until it’s over.”

“The cost of the war in Iraq ended up being almost $3 trillion,” Koshgarian said. “This could be astronomical, easily.”

Jake Johnson