Harvard political expert: ‘I’m sure’ Iran war will cost US taxpayers a trillion dollars

The United States is once again mired in conflict in the Middle East. Bilmes, Harvard Kennedy School lecturer in public policy and author The Ghost Budget: Paying for America’s 9/11 Waronce again sounding the alarm about the true costs of war with Iran.

« I’m sure we’ll spend a trillion dollars on the Iran war, » he said to interview this month at the Harvard Kennedy School. « Maybe we’ve already collected that amount. »

Bilmes’ 13-figure estimate exceeds initial estimates of the cost of the conflict at $1 billion per day. The Pentagon told Congress that the first week of the war paid off about $11.3 billion alone. If this consumption continued, the cost of the war would have been exceeded $35 billion By April 1, according to the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). AEI economists suggested that the first month of the war cost each American household $260—which seems small, but there are more than 150 million tax-paying households in the United States. Currently, Bilmes estimates that the United States spends about 2 billion dollars a day on war.

President Donald Trump said on Wednesday about the war may end « very soon » As the United States conducts peace talks with Iran as it continues to blockade the Strait of Hormuz. Trump has repeated this rhetoric during the conflict. Last month, the Pentagon asked the White House to approve $200 billion in additional funding for Iran’s efforts. the The Washington Post reported.

Bilmes said, just like 20 years ago, the United States continues to underestimate how much money is needed to deal with war and its aftermath. In an interview with Luckhe outlined the often-overlooked costs of war, which continue even years after a conflict ends, and argued that the costs could continue to weigh on America’s $39 trillion debt.

« Wars always have long costs, » he said Luck. « Wars cost more than we expect. The costs of wars last longer than we expect, and some of those costs are consequential. »

Short-term costs

When most people talk about the cost of war, they think of the direct costs of munitions and combat, which Bilmes says « are themselves underestimated. »

The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington, DC think tank, estimated that by the sixth day of the war spending was $11.3 billion on munitions alone, $1.4 billion on combat losses and infrastructure damage, and $26.5 million on operations. about $16.5 billion by the 12th. But that number increases when you factor in the cost of replacing ammunition, which can range from 50 percent to nearly double the original price, Bilmes said. And as a result of tariffs and supply chain disruptions exacerbated by the Russia-Ukraine war, some US munitions makers have warned that the cost of producing munitions has risen. rose from 8 percent to 14 percent from 2024 onwards

Additional spending depends on damage to key infrastructure in the Gulf, and the US has 19 military installations in the region, some of which are already suffered damagewhich CSIS evaluates cost $800 billion during the first two weeks of the war.

Some of the US war spending may also be disproportionate to Iran’s spending. For example, the drones used by Iran are much cheaper like the weapons the US needs to destroy the drones. A Shahed drone used by Iran can cost between $20,000 and $50,000. Reuterswhile a Patriot interceptor used to shoot down a drone can cost around $4 million because they require much more sophisticated technology to operate.

« Not only are the costs high, but we have them in this unbalanced situation where the costs are disproportionately high compared to the production costs of the Drones, » Bilmes said.

The Pentagon declined to comment Luckrequest for comments.

Long-term effect

According to Bilmes, military spending calculations rarely touch on long-term spending, especially the cost of veterans’ disability benefits. The Department of Veterans Affairs said it would offer $195 billion compensation to more than 6.9 million veterans and their families in 2025, according to the Government Accountability Office, up from $136 billion in fiscal 2023.

Spending on veterans’ disability benefits increases during wartime as more people are sent and placed in conditions where they may be exposed to pollutants and chemicals that lead to chronic health problems, Bilmes noted. There are even now about 60,000 US troops In the Middle East region. Since the Gulf War, about 50% of veterans have claimed disability benefits, and 37% of Gulf War veterans have received some form of lifetime disability benefits, according to Bilmes.

But the Trump administration’s efforts to increase the War Department’s budget amid the ongoing conflict are among the biggest spending increases, Bilmes argued. Trump has called for adding $1.5 trillion to the military budget by 2027, up from the previously proposed $1 trillion. Because of the war, he suggested, Congress is more likely to pass a budget increase, likely to mean hundreds of billions of dollars in additional military spending each year, indirectly as a result of the Iran war.

« Prior to this war, Congress was lukewarm to the idea, but the apparent depletion of many, many stockpiles and stockpiles and munitions and so on leads to an environment where the president is likely to secure a much larger increase in the defense budget, » Bilmes said.

A political expert warned that because the lion’s share of spending is borrowed from the Trump administration cut tax revenueThe Iran war is further weighing on the country’s $39 trillion national debt. Compared to the 2003 Iraq War, when nearly $4 trillion of the debt was held by the public and 7% of the national budget was used to pay interest, today about $31 trillion of debt is held by the public, and nearly 15% of the total budget is used for interest, Bilmes said.

« In this case, we are borrowing high interest rates, mostly for things that end up in the sand, » he concluded.