Here’s How That Kind of Money Could Help Working Families
8 months ago today, Donald Trump launched his deeply unpopular war with Iran, and the conflict still has no end in sight. His warmongers in the Pentagon just released new estimates showing that war with Iran has cost taxpayers $47.1 BILLION so far — and that figure doesn’t even include the billions more it will cost to repair the extensive damage to US military bases overseas. It also doesn’t include the $101 billion extra American families have spent on gas since the beginning of the war, and prices continue to soar.
Over the past year, well over 1.5 million kids have had food snatched away from them as they lost food aid, while some 8 million people have lost the health care coverage they relied on after Trump and Republicans in Congress cut health care and food assistance by over $1 trillion. The money wasn’t there for them, but Trump and his team think they deserve a blank check for this pointless war. Instead of bankrolling yet another forever war overseas, working Americans could be getting so much more. Read more about what we could be spending $47.1 billion on instead of Trump’s war with Iran:
Trump’s $47.1 Billion Price Tag For War With Iran Could:
- Buy 9.8 billion school lunches every day, fully funding the program for two and a half years.
- Replace all lead pipes in the U.S. drinking water supply, protecting tens of millions of families from lead poisoning and exposure.
- Fully reverse Trump’s cuts to food assistance for over two years.
- Extend ACA tax credits that Trump and Republicans ripped away from 22 million Americans for nearly two years.
- Fully fund home heating and cooling cost assistance for millions of American families for more than twelve years.
- Fund the national WIC program providing food assistance to women and children for over six years or eliminate WIC waiting lists for infants and pregnant women entirely for two generations.
- Fully fund Head Start for nearly four years, giving millions of kids high-quality early childhood education.
- Fund all deferred maintenance and operations projects for K-12 public school buildings across the country.
- Repair or replace over 35,000 dangerously dilapidated bridges across the country
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For the 2026–2027 school year, the USDA is reimbursing schools participating in the National School Lunch Program at a rate of $4.76 per free lunch served.
The American Road & Transportation Builders Association estimates there are 297,975 bridges across the country in need of major repair work or replacement, which would cost roughly $400 billion in total — averaging $1.34 million per bridge.