Item — HN Reader

Direct costs are ~$113B as of June 16th, 2026 (per the Pentagon's briefing to Congress, counter stopped on that date):

Iran War Cost Tracker - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47237080 - March 2026 (446 comments)

Pentagon Tells Congress First Week of Iran War Cost More Than $11.3 Billion - https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/11/world/middleeast/iran-war... | https://archive.today/Q4oDX - March 11th, 2026

Consumer energy excess cost burden is ~$76B as of this comment (indirect regressive consumer tax):

https://iranwarcost.watson.brown.edu/

> Meanwhile, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security each grew around $100 billion in the last year.

While we should be efficient with these programs, that's what government is for, and what I pay US federal taxes for: to take care of my fellow citizens. Not to bomb innocent people with overpriced military industrial complex hardware on the other side of the world for illegitimate reasons (F-35 program costs now exceed $2T, for example).

https://usafacts.org/government-spending/

Pentagon Fails Eighth Audit, Eyes 2028 Turnaround - https://www.military.com/feature/2025/12/24/pentagon-fails-e... - December 24th, 2025

Annual net interest on debt is ~$900B/year, as of this comment; we could replace Medicare and Medicaid with Medicare for All for ~$2T/year, which would contribute to constraining healthcare spending increases: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48666290. It is an active choice to continue to operate the entire system inefficiently; we could make other, better choices. The inefficiency and debt growth is a result of operating the system for entrenched interests to profit off of the dysfunction.

A common conceit in these arguments is that you have sole ownership to "what a government is for." Which implicitly denies the opposite argument without addressing it, and attempts to legitimize your own. But social service outlays are absolutely, incontrovertibly a huge & increasing reason for the deficit. All the doge/ Trump/project 2025 cuts have paled in the face of the absolute juggernaut that is domestic spending. And then you realize that state govts spend as much money as the federal govt, while having absolutely no defense budget at all.

For you to deny that social spending is problem (especially for what it does buy) totally denigrates you and your position.

What does it buy

Much less for the money than in western europe--even when limiting the analysis to systems like schools and transit that are publicly operated in both places.

So you support a move to make American tax and social services policies more like Western Europe?