By Sharon Zhang, Truthout
While the defense budget continues its decades-long upward spiral, Democrats in the House are waging a push to do something unprecedented: take billions from the defense budget and redirect the money to social spending.
On Monday, Representatives Barbara Lee (D-California) and Mark Pocan (D-Wisconsin) introduced a bill that would cut $100 billion from the defense budget — which, for this year, was a towering $782 billion. This would likely be the largest year-over-year budget cut that the Pentagon has ever seen.

The bill would direct the Department of Defense budget for fiscal year 2023 to be calculated by subtracting $100 billion from the amount appropriated for the defense budget for 2022. While this would still be a massive budget of around $680 billion, it would be a major first step toward progressives’ longtime goal of slashing the defense budget to an amount comparable to that of other countries — or nixing it altogether.
Recent Posts
Why is the Democratic Party Still Hiding its 2024 Election Autopsy?
May 15, 2026
Take Action Now No one has more at stake than Kamala Harris – who has ‘signaled’ support for its release without saying so publiclyBy Norman…
Economic Populism Against the Oligarchs
May 15, 2026
Take Action Now They Rigged the Country Against Us. The Working Class Has Had EnoughBy Jackson Rubin, The Working Model For decades, Americans…
Waterboarding for Dollars in Cuba
May 14, 2026
Take Action Now “What the United States is doing to Cubans is equivalent to waterboarding them into submission, and all CBS could seem to talk about…
The Surveillance Economy Is Here. This Is How We Fight Back.
May 14, 2026
Take Action Now Rejecting surveillance capitalism means insisting, clearly and unapologetically, that markets should serve the people — not the other…




