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House Passes $900B Defense Bill

Does the NDAA's spending protect American strength, reveal misplaced priorities amid domestic needs, or serve as a classic case of state overspending?

Published 2 days ago

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Above: The U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Dec. 8, 2025. Image credit: Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg/Getty Images

The Spin

Pro-Trump narrative

The NDAA delivers peace through strength by ensuring that the U.S. military remains the most formidable in the world, while providing troops with the equipment, infrastructure and incentives to perform at their best. Rooting out harmful programs like DEI and climate initiatives is crucial to this, helping restore the U.S. Armed Forces to its core values and warrior ethos.

Mike Johnson US Congressman for Louisiana

One America on X

Anti-Trump narrative

This NDAA shows just how misplaced Congress's priorities are. Rather than fund Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, politicians have chosen to fuel death and destruction instead. This choice is impossible to justify when ordinary Americans are teetering on the edge, unable to put food on the table or afford the health care treatment they desperately need.

Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib 12th district strong

The Young Turks on Youtube

Narrative C

For hard-pressed American taxpayers, the NDAA is too large. While the U.S. does face an increasingly challenging geopolitical landscape, spending hundreds of billions of dollars on obsolete or wasteful platforms, such as the F-35, will not make America any safer. Congress should instead reduce and redirect spending to more cost-effective and beneficial platforms for security.

National Taxpayers Union

Metaculus Prediction

There is a 3% chance that any country's military expenditure will exceed that of the United States before 2030, according to the Metaculus prediction community.