Trump just raised the $39 trillion national debt with the largest budget hike since World War II—and nobody can figure out how to pay for it

President Trump’s fiscal year 2027 budget proposal, released Friday, calls for boosting total defense funding to $1.5 trillion—a jump that most economists say would represent one of the largest budget increases in American history, rivaling the wartime mobilization of World War II.

The proposal would increase base defense discretionary spending by $251 billion and funnel an additional $350 billion into defense through a new reconciliation bill, while cutting nondefense discretionary spending by just $73 billion—a 10% reduction that budget watchdogs say falls far short of offsetting the military buildup. The net result, according to the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB), is a defense expansion of more than $3.2 trillion over the next decade, adding fuel to a national debt already hovering around $39 trillion.

“The gap between rhetoric and reality is just so massive,” said Steve Hanke, professor of applied economics at Johns Hopkins University. “MAGA was told an untruth by Trump—no foreign wars, no adventurism. Now the defense budget has come in at $1 trillion, and he wants...