By Martha Grevatt
March 24, 2026
Since this revised commentary was first written, the Pentagon’s top boss, Pete Hegseth, has asked President Donald Trump to ask Congress to approve $200 billion for the war against Iran.
Mississippi for a Just World protests the U.S. war against Iran, March 5, 2026. (Photo: Mississippi Today)
March 24 − The people of Iran and West Asia are, obviously, suffering the most from the latest war the U.S. and Israel launched in the region. Thousands of people there have been killed and injured. There is heavy destruction of infrastructure, and hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced, especially in Lebanon.
Nevertheless, working-class and oppressed people inside the U.S. are being negatively impacted by the war in a multitude of ways. For one, the average price of gasoline has skyrocketed, from below $3 a gallon before the U.S. war against Iran began to almost $4 a gallon as of March 24. In fact, multiple items cost more — food, home heating oil, fertilizers and much more. Household debt is up.
The war is costing anywhere from $1 billion to $2 billion per day. On March 12, the conservative American Enterprise Institute estimated the costs at between $11.2 billion and $14.5 billion as of that date. (politico.com, March 12) NPR put the price tag at $16.5 billion for the first 12 days. (npr.org, March 14)
The Iran Cost Ticker website said the cost of the war was over $30 billion and increasing by over $11,000 per second, based on the low estimate of $1 billion per day. (Iran-cost-ticker.com, March 24)
President Donald Trump reportedly wants Congress to authorize $200 billion just for this war on top of the $1.5 trillion Pentagon budget.
What could that money be spent on instead?
Just $1 billion could cover child care costs for over 72,000 parents with infants. Or that same $1 billion could pay the tuition for 90,000 students attending public colleges and universities. A little under half of that $1 billion would allow the Cleveland Municipal School District to update 40 of its older buildings, installing air conditioning, repairing heating systems or replacing old roofs.
Think what $200 billion could do if it were used to help the U.S. population. That’s about double what the federal government has been spending annually on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, or food stamps). But with the passage of Trump’s “Big Ugly Bill,” some people will lose SNAP benefits due to new work requirements and the shifting of 25% of funding costs to state governments. One quarter — $50 billion — could reverse those cuts! Or $30 billion would be enough to extend enhanced premium tax credits under the Affordable Care Act for one year.
Or federal workers who have been permanently laid off — a disproportionate number of them Black women — could get their jobs back.
When the estimate for what Trump would ask from Congress was just $50 billion, a coalition of 250 organizations called on Congress to vote against any more spending on the war, saying: “The $50 billion that the administration reportedly seeks for a new Pentagon supplemental would be enough to restore food assistance for four million Americans that was taken away in the tax and budget reconciliation bill, establish universal pre-K education, and pay for the annual construction of more than 100,000 units of housing, among other possible priorities.” (democracynow.com, March 13)
In other words, money that could be spent on health care, food, housing and education is instead being dumped into a genocidal war against Iran.
Trump could end these destructive spending priorities right now. But Congress could also put a stop to endless war spending. If a majority of either house of Congress votes “no” when the warmongers have their hands out, it will defund the war. It’s the members’ responsibility to stop funding the illegal aggressive war; if the Democrats don’t make a last-ditch fight, their party is also guilty of war crimes.
Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans will end this brutal and costly war. It will take an independent working-class movement to accomplish that task.
Money for jobs, housing, education and health care — not for war!
