AUDIO: Funding War While Millions Lose Food Stamps and Health Care
In a wide-ranging interview on WPFW 89.3 FM’s We the People with host David Whetstone, Lindsay Koshgarian, program director of the National Priorities Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, breaks down how federal budget decisions are fueling the affordability crisis hitting millions of Americans — and what people can do about it.
Koshgarian explains that Congress has been raiding the mandatory budget — the pot that funds programs like Medicaid and food stamps — to pay for three things: tax cuts for the wealthy, a massive military buildup, and Trump’s mass deportation agenda. The human toll is stark: 40 million people risk losing food stamps or seeing their benefits cut, and 17 million more face losing health insurance, all at a moment when grocery prices remain sky-high.
Using NPP’s annual tax receipt analysis, Koshgarian puts the numbers in visceral, personal terms: the average taxpayer paid about $20,000 in federal income taxes in 2025, with roughly $4,000 going to the war budget and weapons — including $1,800 going directly to Pentagon contractors like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon. By contrast, that same taxpayer paid just $124 for school nutrition programs feeding 30 million children, $2,500 for Medicaid covering nearly 70 million Americans, and a mere $49 for diplomacy. Meanwhile, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting — which cost taxpayers just $2 — has been shut down entirely.
On the war in Iran, Koshgarian is direct: Congress never authorized it, the administration cannot provide members of Congress with accurate cost figures, and the justifications mirror the false pretenses used to launch the Iraq War. Best estimates put the total cost so far at $50 to $70 billion — and climbing every day. “This war was not started to keep the United States safe,” she says flatly.
She also pushes back on the idea that a bloated military budget means support for the troops, pointing out that more than half of Pentagon spending flows to contractors — and that the average CEO pay at the top five Pentagon contractors was $24 million, paid largely with public tax dollars. More than twice as much money goes to contractors as to troops for their pay — even as many military families rely on food stamps to get by. “We can protect the troops’ pay, we can give the troops a raise, and cut the military budget at the same time,” she says.
Koshgarian also warns listeners about the long-term damage of what she calls the “Big Ugly Bill” — Trump’s sweeping budget legislation passed with Republican support — which includes nearly a trillion dollars in Medicaid cuts over 10 years, $200 billion slashed from food stamps, and $170 billion poured into mass deportation and detention, with Congress poised to add another $70 billion more. Hundreds of rural hospitals are now at serious risk of closing. The Medicaid cuts are timed to kick in after the midterm elections — “that’s not an accident,” she warns — and every one of the 40 million food stamp recipients will see their benefits stretched thinner, with 4 million expected to lose them entirely.
Her closing message: “If we’re going to stop this from getting worse, we need people calling their members of Congress this week, this year, this summer.”
Listen to the full interview from WPFW 89.3 FM.
