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Trump Wants $6 Trillion Tax Hike to Fund $600 Billion in New War Spending
It’s good to see an old man suffering from dementia enjoying himself, but there are much cheaper and less deadly ways to entertain such a person.
Jan 09, 2026
President Donald Trump is now apparently planning to request a $600 billion increase in annual military spending starting in October, financed by another huge jump in import taxes, aka tariffs. I said “apparently” since it’s not clear that he thinks he has to request authority for this spending increase or massive tax hike from Congress.
Under the Constitution there is no ambiguity on these issues. Congress has the power to tax and authorize spending. However, Donald Trump and the Republican Congress have not shown much respect for the Constitution in Trump’s second term and it’s not clear the Supreme Court has any greater level of respect. So, who knows if there actually will be requests for Congress to vote on, or whether he will just do it with no legal authority.
Anyhow, apart from the mechanism employed, this would be a massive increase in spending, coming to just under 2% of GDP. It would also amount to a massive tax increase if Trump actually offsets the spending, as he claimed he would, rather than just increasing the deficit.
Taken over a decade, a $600 billion increase in annual taxes would come to $6 trillion, roughly $45,000 per household. It is real money. It would be difficult, but not impossible, to raise this much money through tariffs.
That doesn’t sound like much of an affordability agenda, but Trump was never really into that word anyhow.
Our imports currently come to just to over $3.2 trillion annually. A straight calculation would imply that an across-the-board tariff increase of 19 percentage points could cover the cost of Trump’s military buildup. But the increase in the tariff rate on most items would end up being considerably higher for two reasons.
First imports would fall sharply in response to a tariff of this size. Let’s say they fall by 15%, this would put imports at $2.7 trillion, which would mean a tariff increase of 22 percentage points would be needed to get to Trump’s $600 billion.
The other reason that the tariff on most items would likely be higher is that Trump will presumably exempt some items other for policy reasons or in response to payoffs at Mar-a-Lago. In the first category, much of what we import are intermediate goods used in manufacturing finished products like cars or planes. High tariffs on these inputs will hurt industries that Trump is ostensibly trying to foster.
The other part of the story is that we have seen many executives make the pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago, most notably Apple CEO Tim Cook, and walk away tariff exemptions on items they import. This trek will be more widely traveled when CEOs are looking at tariffs two or three times their current levels.
That means the import tax on many products will have to increase in the neighborhood of 30 percentage points to hit Trump’s revenue targets. That will be a big hit to many households’ budgets, as we know that the bulk of tariff revenue gets passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices. That doesn’t sound like much of an affordability agenda, but Trump was never really into that word anyhow.
The other side of the story is that this massive increase in military spending will mean a huge diversion of resources from productive uses. Scientists who might have been developing better computers or software for civilian uses will instead be working for military contractors. The same is true for researchers developing new drugs or medical equipment.
This will also be the case with millions of less-highly educated or narrowly trained workers. Instead of working as teachers or in various areas of healthcare, such as physical therapists or home healthcare assistants, they will be employed in the sort of jobs needed by military contractors. That’s a huge drain for the economy and corresponds to the reduction in purchasing power as a result of Trump’s massive tax increase.
If there was some clear argument as to why we needed such a massive increase in taxes and diversion of resources, as when we confronted the Nazis in World War II, perhaps this hit to the economy could be justified. But no one made such claims, not even Trump in his 2024 campaign, until Trump invaded Venezuela and decided it was fun.
It’s good to see an old man suffering from dementia enjoying himself, but it would be much cheaper and less deadly if we just gave him a good video game.
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Sick of Illegal Wars and Staggering Healthcare Costs? Blame Congress
Members of Congress passed a $1 trillion war budget at the same time that congressional Republicans voted to refuse help for millions of Americans struggling to afford health insurance.
Jan 08, 2026
At a time when nearly half of Americans say they’re struggling to afford basic necessities, President Donald Trump has turned his attention to invading and ruling Venezuela.
One in two Americans are having trouble affording groceries, utilities, healthcare, housing, and transportation, according to a recent poll. Healthcare costs are rising—and in many cases doubling—for millions of Americans because Republicans in Congress refuse to help. And while grocery prices remain high, those same GOP lawmakers chose to cut food stamps for millions of struggling people.
Our government should be helping working people and families. Instead, the president chose to use our tax dollars to invade a foreign country. And while Trump said plenty about how the US will now rule over the people of Venezuela, he hasn’t explained why the same tax dollars that paid for this invasion can’t be used to make healthcare, food, or housing more affordable for people here.
The president added he’s “not afraid of boots on the ground” in Venezuela. But the last times the US attempted to take over other countries—in Iraq and Afghanistan—it cost trillions of dollars, thousands of American lives, and potentially millions of lives in the Middle East. It’s way too soon to make this mistake again—and Trump had previously promised he wouldn’t, calling those wars “foolish” and “stupid.”
But it’s not too late to improve this situation. Members of Congress can stop another unjustifiable war—and help Americans pay their bills instead.
To be sure, someone will benefit from this invasion—just not ordinary Americans. The president has offered oil companies taxpayer dollars to take Venezuela’s oil. They hardly need the help, though they did contribute handsomely to his campaign.
Despite previous claims by the administration, this move is far more about oil than drugs, since Venezuela isn’t a supplier of the fentanyl that still causes so many deaths—and even the cocaine trafficked through Venezuela tends to head to Europe, not the United States. Either way, the US shouldn’t be in the business of deposing every questionable leader in the world by military force.
Congress is to blame here, too. It’s their job to declare war, not the president’s—and they didn’t do their job to stop this. The president sent plenty of signs that this invasion might be coming. But in recent weeks, despite bipartisan efforts in both the House and Senate, narrow majorities in Congress refused to pass measures that would have halted it. Both measures failed by just a handful of votes.
And in December, members of both parties passed a $1 trillion war budget with zero safeguards to stop something like the Venezuela invasion—which, again, was easy to see coming. Members of Congress passed the $1 trillion war budget at the same time that congressional Republicans voted to refuse help for millions of Americans struggling to afford health insurance. So the invasion went forward even while millions of Americans did the math on just surviving until the next paycheck.
But it’s not too late to improve this situation. Members of Congress can stop another unjustifiable war—and help Americans pay their bills instead. Congress can refuse to allow the president to send troops back into Venezuela with a simple vote. And while they’re at it, Congress should extend some real help to Americans struggling to get by.
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Watchdog Demands to Know If Trump Admin Colluded With Big Oil in Lead-Up to Venezuela Attack
"When government actions tied to foreign resources are preceded and followed by closed-door meetings with the world’s largest oil companies, transparency is not optional—it is essential."
Jan 07, 2026
A legal watchdog group is demanding information about the extent to which the Trump administration planned its attack on Venezuela last weekend with American oil companies, which are expected to profit royally from the takeover of the South American nation's oil reserves.
The group Democracy Forward filed a series of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests on Monday seeking records and information about the role of US oil companies in the planning of the attack, which killed an estimated 75 people and led to the US military's abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife.
President Donald Trump did not inform Congress of the operation, which is required under the War Powers Act of 1973, but he told reporters on Sunday that he'd tipped off oil company executives both "before and after" the strike.
According to reporting by the Wall Street Journal, he informed executives roughly a month before the strike to "get ready" because big changes were coming to the country, which had long held state control over the largest oil reserves in the world.
Since toppling Maduro, in an operation that international law experts have widely described as illegal, Trump has said his goal is to "get the oil flowing" to American oil companies to start "taking a tremendous amount of wealth out of the ground.”
On Tuesday, Trump said Venezuela's interim leaders—who he's threatened with more attacks if they don't do what he says—have agreed to hand over 30-50 million barrels of oil to be sold by the US, which will control how the profits are dispersed.
Trump and several members of his Cabinet, including Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, are expected to meet with oil executives on Friday at the White House to discuss "security guarantees" for their new spoils.
Democracy Forward has requested information about communications between senior officials at the US departments of Energy and the Interior and executives at top oil companies, including Chevron, ExxonMobil, and ConocoPhillips, prior to the attack. This includes emails, attachments, and calendar invitations exchanged since December 2025.
The group has said it will seek to determine whether these companies were given "privileged access or influence" over the administration's policy toward Venezuela.
“The president couldn’t find time to brief members of Congress before kidnapping a foreign head of state, but appears to have prioritized discussions with Big Oil. When government actions tied to foreign resources are preceded and followed by closed-door meetings with the world’s largest oil companies, transparency is not optional—it is essential,” said Skye Perryman, the president and CEO of Democracy Forward. “The public deserves to know what interests are shaping decisions that have enormous consequences for global energy markets and democratic accountability.”
FOIA, which was passed in 1967, allows members of the public to request records from any federal agency. However, agencies have broad discretion to deny FOIA requests, including in cases involving national security or interagency communications.
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