This domestic negligence reflects a deeper national priority: a war economy that reliably funds death and destruction while claiming that sustaining life is unaffordable. Even during the recent government shutdown, the Senate united to approve a $32 billion increase to the Pentagon budget, passing it 77–20. In contrast, extending Affordable Care Act enhanced subsidies for a single year — at roughly the same cost — was rejected, despite its potential to keep millions insured.

This pattern repeats annually. Congress routinely passes ever-larger Pentagon budgets, now approaching $1 trillion. The 2026 National Defense Authorization Act is expected to advance easily this month, while a vote to preserve health care subsidies remains uncertain. Only one of these measures is guaranteed to pass without controversy, and it is not the one that saves lives.

The disparity is stark: Continuing Affordable Care Act enhanced subsidies costs about $30 billion per year, or $82 million per day. Operating one U.S. aircraft carrier costs about $8 million daily, by some estimates —10% of the nation’s daily health care subsidy cost. One day of funding a single warship could instead fund a day of health care for hundreds of thousands of Americans.

These choices reveal a system that prioritizes war over human life, leaving many — domestically and globally — on the chopping block.

Harold A. Penner

US has the power to end risk of war (Published Friday, August 16)

The risk of war in the Middle East could end if the United States chose to make it so.

Last November, the Jewish News Syndicate reported that retired Israeli Maj. Gen. Yitzhak Brick said, “All of our missiles, the ammunition, the precision-guided bombs, all the airplanes and bombs, it’s all from the U.S. The minute they turn off the tap, you can’t keep fighting. You have no capability. … Everyone understands that we can’t fight this war without the United States. Period.”

For wars to cease, must U.S. taxpayers “turn off the tap” to military spending?

Apparently so, since LNP | LancasterOnline has published news service articles this month reporting that the United States is sending a guided missile submarine and aircraft carrier to defend Israel and approved $20 billion in new arms sales to Israel, including scores of fighter jets, advanced air-to-air missiles, tank ammunition, high-explosive mortars and tactical vehicles.

What sort of inhumane, potential World War III is the United States igniting?

Let’s consider abandoning war-making, including the current battlefield that is Gaza, and disobeying IRS orders by refusing to pay for the criminal undertaking of militarism. Such conscientious action would be in accordance with Principle IV of the Nuremberg guidelines, which indicate that it is not an acceptable excuse to say, “I was just following my superior’s orders.”

Might our moral choice be one of redirecting our federal tax dollars that underwrite war-making toward endeavors of peacemaking, which support a nuclear-free, ecologically sustainable planet comprised of a community of nations?

Harold A. Penner Akron