Also recognize the falsity of attributing the entire defense budget to "the war machine". There are policy debates that could take you lower or (like this request) higher, but it's not like an order-of-magnitude thing.
And we spend well over a trillion dollars on defense. And yet the straight of hormuz is still closed, just like there are still children who don't have enough food and suffer for it. Comparing the total budget of one thing against a budget delta of another thing is wrong. Compare deltas of each and compare their benefits.
That's just not true; the US Military Budget for 2025 was (USD) $768 BB. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_...
https://www.defensebudget.org/en/country/united-states
The VA budget alone is over $400B, and the intelligence budget is _classified_.
We're talking about an incremental fragment of the US military budget. It's fair to compare it to an incremental fragment of public wellness that would cost less and have profound impact.
> and a large component of this funding request is for capital expenditures, not ongoing operational expenditure
Oh, of course. You're right. I forgot that drones have zero operational costs and that military spending will decrease next year instead of increasing again and again and again like always.