—Pope Leo XIV, message for World Day of Peace, 08 December 2025

Tax dollar receipts: where dollars go and where they should

The Institute for Policy Studies has released their findings about how much the average taxpayer paid for war and weapons. Unsurprisingly, that number is roughly 20% of the average person’s tax bill, an outrageous $4,049 per person. Over 45% of this went to Pentagon contractors, while an amount smaller than half the contractors’ share went to troops, many of whom rely on nutrition assistance programs (like SNAP); those food programs have been dramatically cut in the same time period to less than 4% of the average taxpayer’s bill. Bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities in the summer of 2025, a single military operation, cost every taxpayer more than an hour of work at the federal minimum wage.

Despite these infuriating numbers, President Trump’s budget proposal for the 2027 fiscal year requests a 50% increase for military spending: $1.5 trillion. This number consistently increases year after year, and Congress has the habit of granting even more for the Pentagon than any administration asks for. Even worse, the Pentagon has never successfully passed a financial audit, but the budget just keeps on growing. This unaccountable, warmongering bloat must stop.

Please use the draft email in the grey box at right (below on mobile devices) to urge Congress to reject the president’s budget request for the Pentagon and instead include a 10% cut to the military budget. The amount of good that can be done with $100 billion being redirected to basic human needs like food, education, and healthcare as we also reduce our investment in tools of destruction is profound. We can do better as a nation to provide for the common good.