Military families are watching on tenterhooks to see if local militias resume attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria. Why does President Joe Biden continue to absorb casualties and risk the lives of thousands of U.S. troops despite no clear mission? The deciding factor may be that Congress finances veterans’ benefits in a way that enables him to put U.S. lives at risk when public opposition would otherwise stop him.

Congress funds veterans’ benefits like it funds Social Security and Medicare. It promises all sorts of benefits now but does not fund those promises until they come due, often decades later.

This “promise now, pay later” approach encourages politicians to make more promises, leaving it to future politicians to deliver on them (e.g., when Congress expanded veterans’ benefits in 2022). It also leaves politicians free to renege on those promises after recipients become dependent on them (e.g., when congressional analysts suggest cutting projected spending on veterans to the tune of half a trillion dollars over the next decade).

In the case of veterans’ benefits, “promise now, pay later” also hides the largest fiscal cost of the decision to go to war. As a result, it allows and encourages the president and Congress to risk U.S. lives when public opposition would otherwise prevent it.

Veterans’ benefits are the largest fiscal cost of any war. Annual disability payments to 1.7 million Vietnam-era recipients reached $30 billion in 2022 yet still haven’t peaked, though that conflict ended 50 years ago. Congress didn’t stop paying Civil War-era benefits until 2020 — i.e., 155 years after Appomattox.

Official projections suggest that, were Congress to fund these promises when it makes them, it would have had to scrape up an additional $2 trillion in 2023. One trillion to cover new promises Congress made since 2022: active-duty personnel accruing benefits ($200 billion) plus new benefits Congress created for current veterans ($800 billion). The other trillion would cover promises Congress made in prior years but underestimated the cost of. These obligations rival the annual budgets of the Departments of Veterans Affairs ($300 billion) and Defense ($800 billion). The $886 billion “defense” bill making its way through Congress costs a lot more than $886 billion.

Hiding those costs increases policymakers’ willingness to risk the lives of U.S. troops.

Politicians are highly sensitive to the burden war imposes on taxpayers. In 2002, President George W. Bush fired economic adviser Larry Lindsey for projecting that invading Iraq could someday cost $200 billion. In 2012, President Barack Obama cited the $100 billion annual cost of keeping troops in Afghanistan when ordering a partial withdrawal. In 2021, Biden cited the $40 billion annual cost when ordering a complete withdrawal.

Concealing the cost of veterans’ benefits distorts congressional and public debates about the use of force. It hides both the largest fiscal obstacle to putting U.S. lives at risk and the largest fiscal benefit of reducing that risk. Hawks don’t have to justify the full cost of their policies. Doves cannot show the full benefits of theirs.

Heads, war wins. Tails, military families lose.

This asymmetry distorts U.S. foreign policy. If Congress had to reveal and justify the full cost of invading Iraq — which exceeded Lindsey’s pessimistic projections by a factor of four to 15 — the 4,505 U.S. soldiers who lost their lives in that conflict might not have (to say nothing of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis).

When Presidents Obama, Donald Trump and Biden rallied support for bringing U.S. troops home from Afghanistan, they did so with one arm tied behind their backs. Biden is sending thousands more soldiers and sailors into combat zones in the Middle East in part because he need not acknowledge, much less justify, the largest fiscal cost of his decisions.

Would Congress and the president keep exposing U.S. troops to current levels of risk if it meant either increasing taxes, increasing the deficit or cutting other spending by at least $200 billion?

Maybe. Then again, opposition to cutting just $10 billion from the least popular federal agency (the IRS) was enough to stall a package of military aid for Israel.

In a new book — “Recovery: A Guide to Reforming the U.S. Health Sector” — I propose funding veterans’ benefits in a way that reveals their cost (including real-time updates of how war would increase those obligations), requires policymakers to justify those costs, and prevents politicians from reneging on their promises to veterans. Pre-funding veterans’ benefits would not add a penny to the burdens taxpayers bear. It would make existing burdens transparent, and make politicians account for them.

Veterans’ benefits are a proxy for the costs war imposes on military families. When Congress and the president conceal the cost of veterans’ benefits, they are literally valuing those sacrifices at zero. You don’t have to be an economist to know that’s just wrong.