As a candidate for president, Donald Trump infamously promised to end endless wars and be the president of peace. In office, President Trump has launched illegal regime change wars in Iran and Venezuela; bombed at least five other countries; threatened war against Cuba, Greenland, Mexico, Panama, and Colombia; and supported Israel’s genocide in Gaza and war in Lebanon.
Despite a two-week ceasefire and diplomatic negotiations with Iran, Trump has deployed thousands of additional troops to the Middle East, while “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth has made renewed threats to attack Iran’s civilian infrastructure, widely considered a war crime. For the next fiscal year, Trump hasrequestedthe largest military budget in US history, $1.5 trillion. He has also indicated he willaskfor up to $200 billion more to fund the war in Iran. By all indications, Trump looks likely to return to war, if not in Iran, somewhere else.
Trump’s embrace of endless wars alreadyhaskilled and injured tens of thousands, displaced millions, squandered tens of billions of taxpayer dollars, driven up prices on gas and other necessities, created a global economic crisis, and risked wider catastrophe and World War III. And don’t forget Trump’s genocidal threats to “wipe out” Iranian civilization, implying a potential nuclear attack.
Faced with the threat of more endless war in Iran and beyond, Congress must do everything in its power to stop Trump. One tool Congress hasn’t used is its power to immediately cut off money for wars in Iran and beyond. With constitutional authority over government spending, Congress can use itsrescissionpower – that is, thepowerto rescind, or take back, money previously appropriated to government agencies. Specifically, Congress should rescind around one-third of this year’s discretionary budgets for the “Department of War” and Department of Energy, where nuclear weapons spending is hidden, while avoiding cuts that would harm military personnel and their families.
Cutting $350 billion in discretionary spending from the over $1 trillion war budgets would actually help protect the troops by making it harder, if not impossible, for Trump to deploy them into harm’s way to fight his wars. While a $350 billion cut may sound daunting, it would leave the country with a total military budget farlargerthan that ofChinaand Russiacombinedand allow the military to focus on defending the country rather than squandering billions on endless wars.
While only two Republican Congress members havevotedto stop Trump’s war in Iran, Democrats should advance a rescissions bill to continue to apply pressure to end the war in Iran and show they won’t fund another day of endless war. While a rescissions bill is unlikely to pass now, we may soon see more Republicans defecting from Trump’s sinking presidency and increasingly unhinged behavior. While a rescissions bill of this sort may break with congressional precedent, the future of the country and the world is at stake. Extraordinary threats demand extraordinary measures.
Given what we’ve seen from Trump, how can he be trusted to continue to control a military budget that already exceeds $1 trillion? Doing so is to almost literally leave loaded guns in the hands of an increasingly erratic and dangerous man.
The danger Trump poses underlines the desperate need to get Trump out of office as quickly as possible through impeachment or the 25th Amendment. Amid these efforts and continued attempts to pass Iran War Powers Resolutions to prevent Trump from waging war without congressional approval, Congress should help protect the country and the world by removing the funds available to Trump to make more war.
Allowing Donald Trump to continue to control the entirety of this year’s Pentagon budget – let alone a larger one next year – risks his not only continuing his immoral, illegal war in Iran but also his likely launching new wars, including, for example, in Cuba and most frightening of all with China.
Congress has the power to take back money it’s previously appropriated to the Pentagon just as it has passedthousandsof rescissions bills to take back all kinds of funding it previously approved.
Source: Antiwar.com
