NEWSWEEK: Trump's Pentagon Parade Will Cost Lives and Livelihoods Opinion

[Miles Archer]

Trump's Pentagon Parade Will Cost Lives and Livelihoods | Opinion

Published Jun 12, 2025 at 6:00 AM EDT

Trump wants to spend tens of millions on a military parade that happens to be on his birthday. At the same time, he's pushing cuts to food stamps, Medicaid, child labor enforcement, and more.

This country needs many things—like cheaper groceries and housing and better jobs, health care, and schools. Instead of taking care of any of that, this parade will cost taxpayers an estimated $45 million. The street repairs post-parade alone are projected to cost about $16 million, since ordinary city streets aren't designed to handle heavy military traffic.

Trump's military parade will not accomplish a single thing. It's a microcosm of this administration's bigger budget priorities.

Trump and his followers in Congress are in the process of gutting Medicaid and food stamps to slash taxes for the wealthy, triple the budget for separating immigrant families, and pass the first-ever $1 trillion Pentagon budget. The president's budget proposal also promises cuts to a host of other programs, from public schools to medical research.