In our last Nukes of Hazard episode, we kicked off our special series from Omaha, Nebraska, where the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation partnered with Nebraskans for Peace for an event titled A Costly Silence: Why Your Policymakers Should Be Talking About the Trillion-Dollar Pentagon Budget. Executive Director John Tierney and moderator Alex Bell set the stage by looking at why Washington stays quiet about massive defense spending and how that silence impacts taxpayers nationwide.
In this second episode, panelist Gabe Murphy, Policy Analyst at Taxpayers for Common Sense, breaks down the Pentagon’s staggering $1.5 trillion budget request, highlighting billions spent on over-budget items like the F-35 fighter jet, unproven technology like the Golden Dome missile defense program, and unnecessary vanity projects like the Trump-class battleships. Then, Lindsay Koshgarian, Program Director of the National Priorities Project, reframes this record-breaking spending not as an inevitability, but as a political choice. She contrasts the Pentagon’s annual end-of-year spending sprees and eight consecutive failed audits with deep cuts to essential safety nets like Medicaid and SNAP, showing how exorbitant military spending directly impacts everyday families in Nebraska and across the country.
