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July 13, 2026 — Numbers, Really BIG Numbers

Check out this week’s blog post by IP attorney, author Timothy Trainer, host of the podcast and video show Tim’s Travails • Follow Tim on Substack

Image source: visualcapitalist.com

We’re going to defeat Iran for the umpteenth time as we’ve restarted the bombing campaign. Are we hallucinating, or were we told we’d won already? This military misadventure has caused this inept administration to ask Congress for billions more because of the price tag associated with military operations in the Middle East/Gulf region.

The U.S. defense budget for fiscal year 2026 was over a trillion dollars ($1,088.7 billion/$1,088,700,000,000): Unpacking the $1.5 Trillion FY 2027 Defense Budget Topline. It might be easier to think about that number in a different way. The 2026 defense budget equates to spending $34,522.00 every SECOND. It probably isn’t much of a stretch to think that many U.S. households would like to have a yearly income equal to three or four seconds of that defense budget to house, feed, clothe, and provide health care for the family.

Because defense is crucial to our national security, this administration seeks more, a lot more, for defense in its fiscal year 2027 defense budget request. Unable to operate and manage a trillion-dollar budget, it’s asking Congress to hand over $1,541.4 billion for fiscal year 2027 ($1,541,700,000,000). Given the length of that number, here it is broken down in seconds: $48,887 per SECOND.

Given the mismanagement and poor decision-making already demonstrated in the use of our military, it would be beyond irresponsible for Congress to approve a request for such a large budget increase. It raises questions about why such a large increase in the budget is necessary. Of course, one obvious reason for the increase is that we must now replenish depleted stockpiles of drones, bombs, and missiles. Attempting to dictate how the money is to be used is useless with this administration because it would simply ignore restrictions on the use of appropriated funds.

Numbers in trillions or hundreds of billions are difficult to comprehend. Thinking about what that number looks like on a per-second or per-minute basis puts into perspective just how much money we are giving any government agency or department. As this administration seeks to spend nearly $50,000 per second for the Defense Department, under its requested 2027 budget, there is nothing improper about asking questions about how all these billions will be spent, especially as the same administration cuts back on disaster preparedness, health programs, basic nutrition needs of citizens, education, and many other programs.

 Ultimately, taxpayers, i.e., voters, need to “speak” out through contacts with members of Congress and in the voting booth. Handing over such a large defense budget to this Criminal-in-Chief may be viewed as permission to initiate more wars of choice.

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About the Timothy Trainer: Writing books is a passion for attorney Timothy Trainer, who for more than three decades focused on intellectual property issues in his day job. He has worked in government agencies and in the private sector, and his assignments have taken him to 60 countries around the world.

Tim found time to pen a few non-fiction tomes, including his first book, Customs Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights; the 15th edition was published in 2022. Thomson Reuters’ Aspatore Books published Tim’s next title in 2015, Potato Chips to Computer Chips: The War on Fake Stuff. 

Fiction was a genre he always wanted to try. In 2019, Pendulum Over the Pacific, was released by Joshua Tree Publishing. “This political intrigue story is set in Tokyo and Washington, D.C., and centers on trade tensions between the U.S. and Japan in the late 1980s,” Tim explains.

In 2023, his first series hit bookstores: The China Connection.

In 2025, he published the sequel, The China Factor, which ranked #63 on the Amazon Asian Literature list in May.

Click here to learn about all of Tim’s books.