The new proposed U.S. Defense Budget would total $911.8 billion and allow the government to draft women.
Last year Congress approved a defense budget totaling $886 billion and we freaked out. The year before, we freaked out because it was in the high $700 billion-range, although we know that the military adds to this by funneling more money through contractors.
To put this into perspective, China has the world’s largest military in terms of people but their budget was only $224 billion in 2024.
How can the U.S. afford this while also marching towards another debt ceiling in September?
As for drafting women, the bill specifies that there are plenty of non-combat positions that women could take and exempts them from the front lines. The bill makes the case that women may need to be drafted due to low recruitment but many say that this is a slippery slope and could mean that women do go into the front lines in the future. If they do that, they’d have to lower physical fitness standards. Who would that benefit? Combat doesn’t account for lower standards, does it?
