What America Chooses to Pay For — Is America Better Yet?

Affordability, Medicaid, SNAP, Federal Budget, Pentagon, Department of Defense, Immigration, Congress, Trump Administration, Government Spending, Accountability that federal and state in-kind benefits will decline by about $900 billion from 2026 through 2034, primarily because Medicaid and SNAP benefits will be lower.

At the same time, changes involving federal taxes and cash transfers increase household resources by a net $3.3 trillion over that period.

The distribution is not even.

That distinction matters.

It means the debate is not simply about whether Washington is spending more or spending less.

It is also about who benefits from the decisions being made.

Meanwhile, Washington can move money

Federal agencies cannot legally reach into any account they choose and spend whatever they want.

Congress controls appropriations.

The Government Accountability Office explains that moving money from one appropriation to another generally requires statutory authority. Reprogramming money within an existing appropriation also has rules and limits.

But Congress can provide broad authority to move money.

And it has.

The Full-Year Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act of 2025 increased the Defense Department's general transfer authority to $8 billion.

The same law provided the Department of Defense another $8 billion specifically available for transfer to military personnel, operations and maintenance, and defense working-capital accounts for U.S. military operations, force protection and deterrence under U.S. Central Command and European Command.

That is what federal flexibility looks like in practice.

Congress authorizes it first.

Then government officials can use that authority within the limits Congress established.

We can see the money moving

A July 2026 GAO investigation provides an unusually clear example.

GAO examined how the Defense Department financed operations along the southern border.

It found that DOD had:

realigned $1.74 billion from existing fiscal 2025 funding;

transferred $608 million from or through its counter-drug account;

used $300 million from existing military construction accounts for border barriers;

and begun using $1 billion appropriated by the 2025 reconciliation law for border-related activities.

GAO followed some of those transfers further.

On April 25, 2025, DOD transferred $161 million from its counter-drug account into an Army operations and maintenance account to support Customs and Border Protection operations.

Less than a month later, DOD transferred another $447 million from a Navy working-capital account through the counter-drug account.

According to DOD officials interviewed by GAO, $442 million of that transfer supported ICE detention operations, with another $5 million used to reimburse military expenses related to immigration detention at Guantánamo Bay.

Nothing about those transfers was magic.

They were possible because the legal authority existed to make them.

That is the distinction Americans deserve to understand.

“We cannot afford it” is not the whole explanation

The federal government does not operate like a household checking account.

When federal spending exceeds federal revenue, the government can finance the deficit by borrowing.

The U.S. Treasury Department explains that the government does this by selling Treasury bills, notes and bonds.

CBO projects a federal deficit of about $1.9 trillion in fiscal year 2026.

That does not mean unlimited spending is harmless.

Borrowing has consequences. Debt carries interest. Choices made today can impose costs tomorrow.

But it does mean that when politicians say America simply “cannot afford” a program, that statement deserves another question:

Compared with what?

Government routinely makes choices among competing priorities.

Some spending is reduced.

Other spending is increased.

Some taxes are cut.

Some programs are expanded.

Some programs become harder to qualify for.

Congress decides whether agencies receive authority to transfer billions from one account to another.

Those are policy decisions, not laws of nature.

CBO's ledger shows the contrast

CBO's 2026 budget outlook provides one of the clearest summaries.

Looking at legislation enacted since its previous baseline, CBO projected approximately $200 billion more in defense discretionary outlays over the 2026-2035 period while projecting approximately $1.2 trillion less in nondefense discretionary outlays.

CBO also said the 2025 reconciliation law reduced deficits through changes to health care, higher education and SNAP while other provisions increased spending on national defense, immigration-related activities and agriculture programs.

Those are CBO's categories, not ours.

And they bring the larger issue into focus.

America did not suddenly lose the ability to spend money.

America changed what it was spending money on.

That does not make every defense dollar unnecessary

National defense costs money.

Military personnel must be paid. Equipment must be maintained. Threats are real. Border operations authorized by the government also require funding.

The question is not whether national security deserves federal resources.

It plainly does.

Nor does evidence that Medicaid and SNAP spending is being reduced prove that the same dollars were directly transferred into military accounts.

They generally were not.

The more important question is about priorities.

When Congress is willing to provide billions of dollars in transfer authority for defense operations, when DOD can legally realign more than a billion dollars for a new border mission, and when the federal government can borrow to finance spending above its revenues, statements that the country simply cannot afford health or food assistance deserve scrutiny.

The actual question is:

What has the government chosen to afford?

Congress can change the choices

Congress created many of these policies.

Congress can change them.

It can amend Medicaid law.

It can change SNAP requirements.

It can appropriate additional money for social programs.

It can reduce or increase defense funding.

It can restrict Pentagon transfer authority.

It can require agencies to explain how reprogrammed money was used.

It can conduct oversight.

And it can repeal provisions enacted by an earlier Congress.

That does not mean doing so would be politically easy.

It means the current allocation of federal resources is not inevitable.

It resulted from decisions.

Follow the money, not the argument

Americans are entitled to arguments about taxes, defense, food assistance, health care and the national debt.

There will always be legitimate disagreements about how much government should spend and where.

But those disagreements should begin with an honest accounting.

CBO says the 2025 reconciliation law will reduce resources for households toward the bottom of the income distribution while increasing resources for households in the middle and toward the top.

It projects sharply lower federal spending on Medicaid and SNAP.

At the same time, federal records show Congress authorizing billions for defense operations and broad authority for the Pentagon to transfer money between accounts. GAO has documented that authority being used to shift hundreds of millions of dollars into border and immigration operations.

Those facts do not tell Americans what their priorities should be.

They tell us that priorities exist.

When Washington tells a family there must be less help paying for health care or food because the country must live within its means, Americans have every right to look at the rest of the federal ledger.

And ask:

What America can afford, for whom, and who made that choice?

Sources

• Congressional Budget Office, The Budget and Economic Outlook: 2026 to 2036, February 2026. CBO budget outlook
• Congressional Budget Office, Distributional Effects of Public Law 119-21, August 11, 2025. CBO distributional analysis
• Congressional Budget Office, Medicaid cost estimate for Public Law 119-21, October 28, 2025. CBO Medicaid analysis
• Government Accountability Office, Southern Border Security: DOD Used Multiple Strategies to Fund Operations, GAO-26-108437, July 13, 2026. GAO border-funding investigation
• U.S. Treasury Fiscal Data, federal deficit and national debt explainers. Treasury deficit explainer
• Public Law 119-4 / Full-Year Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2025, Defense transfer provisions.
• Public Law 119-21, enacted July 4, 2025.

Reporting and Verification Note

This report separates congressional appropriations, agency transfers and reprogramming from direct program-to-program transfers. No evidence reviewed for this article establishes that money cut from an individual Medicaid or SNAP account was directly transferred to the Department of Defense. The comparison concerns federal spending priorities, statutory authority and documented changes in projected spending.

AI assistance disclosure: Artificial intelligence was used as a research, organization, drafting, editing, and verification aid in preparing this report.

Evidence standard: AI-generated output was not treated as evidence. Every factual claim presented as verified was checked against an identifiable source linked above.

Corrections and Updates

Is America Better Yet? maintains this article as a living record. Material corrections or significant new federal budget information will be identified here.

Roberto Zapatero
Independent Forensic Investigative Journalist
Is America Better Yet?

I write for you,
— Roberto
isamericabetteryet.org

Copyright: © 2026 Roberto Zapatero / Is America Better Yet? All rights reserved.