Hegseth was testifying on the Trump administration’s $1.535 trillion Fiscal Year 2027 Pentagon budget request—a near-50 percent jump in a single year that would lift military outlays to roughly 4.5 percent of gross domestic product. Funding the buildup requires a frontal assault on what remains of the federal social safety net, with Republican leaders preparing further cuts to Medicaid, food stamps and Social Security through reconciliation.

Hegseth spoke as the representative of a completely criminal government, personally advocating that US troops commit war crimes—including upon direct questioning at the hearing.

In the face of a broadly unpopular administration, the Democrats made it their highest priority to emphasize—despite tactical disagreements—their solidarity with the Trump administration’s megalomaniacal program of world conquest. Their objections were that Trump’s plans do not go far enough, or that the Iran war has left the United States unprepared for war with nuclear-armed China and Russia.

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The Senate Democrats speak for the same capitalist oligarchy as Donald Trump. Their disagreements were operational—anxiety that the Iran war is going badly, anxiety that the United States is unprepared for the larger conflict with China both parties expect. On the question of whether US military spending should surge toward $1.5 trillion to wage that war, Thursday’s hearing revealed no disagreement at all.