No. 05 The Other Side of the Ledger

The fiscal year 2027 budget request adds $445 billion to defense and cuts $73 billion from everything else. The ratio is six to one. For every six dollars flowing toward missiles, interceptors, stealth fighters, and a missile defense shield, one dollar is removed from the programs that determine whether ordinary Americans can eat, stay housed, stay healthy, and recover from disasters. The administration describes this as rebalancing national priorities. The people on the receiving end will experience it differently.

FOOD

The food assistance cut lands on a population already absorbing the Iran war’s energy shock. American grocery prices were running at elevated levels before February 28. The Hormuz closure pushed oil above $100 a barrel. Diesel, which moves food through the supply chain, surged. The cost of feeding a family in the spring of 2026 is materially higher than it was twelve months ago, as a direct consequence of a military operation the government conducted without a congressional declaration of war. The families receiving food assistance did not cause that inflation. They are now being asked to absorb both the inflation and the cut.

HOUSING

The housing assistance reduction compounds the same logic. The Iran conflict generated the fastest weekly gasoline price increase since Russia invaded Ukraine. That energy cost is inflationary across the entire economy, including construction materials, utilities, and the operating costs of housing. Cutting housing assistance into that environment does not reduce the number of people who need it. It increases them while reducing the government’s capacity to respond.

PUBLIC HEALTH

The NIH and CDC reductions carry a longer consequence. The United States in 2026 is not operating in a stable global health environment. The Iran war disrupted pharmaceutical supply chains. Gulf states through which active pharmaceutical ingredients move were targeted by Iranian strikes. The Strait of Hormuz carries chemical precursors that reach American manufacturing facilities. Reducing the institutional capacity of the two federal agencies responsible for disease surveillance and emergency health response at precisely the moment global supply chains are under stress is a cost that will not appear in any budget line until something goes wrong. At which point the cost will be very large and the institutional capacity to respond will have been cut.

DISASTER RESPONSE AND CYBER DEFENSE

FEMA and CISA reductions follow the same logic. FEMA responds to disasters. CISA defends critical infrastructure against cyberattack. Both agencies faced increased demand during and after the Iran conflict. Iranian cyber operations against American infrastructure were documented throughout the war. Climate-related disasters continue to accelerate. Cutting both agencies in the same budget cycle that funds a $185 billion missile defense shield is a statement about which Americans the government is protecting, and from what.

THE EXCEPTION THAT PROVES THE RULE

The veterans budget is the one exception. The Department of Veterans Affairs receives $488 billion in fiscal year 2027, a 7.7 percent increase, a tenfold rise from its $45 billion budget in 2001. That growth is the accumulated cost of every war the United States has fought since September 11. It is politically untouchable because veterans are a constituency with organized representation and moral authority. The people receiving food assistance, housing support, and public health services are a larger constituency with less organized representation and less political leverage. The budget reflects that asymmetry with precision.

THE SINGLE AMERICAN

There is a single American who sits at the intersection of all five cuts. The person paying elevated gas prices from the Iran oil shock, receiving reduced food assistance, living in housing that costs more because energy inflation has raised every input price, watching the NIH research program that funds treatment for a family member’s condition shrink, and whose community FEMA will be less equipped to help when the next hurricane arrives.

That person did not vote on Operation Epic Fury. That person did not authorize the reconciliation bill that added $350 billion to the defense budget without a committee hearing. That person is, however, being asked to fund all of it, through reduced services now and compounding debt service for the next twenty years. The trillion dollar defense floor documented in the preceding article is the number going out. This is the number coming in. The difference between them is not paid by the people who made the decision. It is paid by the people who live with it.

Sources: OMB FY2027 Budget Request, Defense News, NPR, CNN, Federal News Network. Data current as of April 8, 2026.