Adding $150 Billion to the Pentagon Budget Will Waste Funds Without Improving Our Defenses

Forbes

26-04-2025

WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 11: Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) speaks to the press on the transparency from ... More the Department of Defense regarding the health of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on January 11, 2024 in Washington, DC. Secretary Austin was hospitalized for surgery relating to prostate cancer, which was not reported for several days. (Photo by Anna)
Even as President Trump and secretary of defense Pete Hegseth talk of a post-World War II record $1 trillion Pentagon budget request for fiscal year 2026, majorities in both houses of Congress are seeking a multi-year, $150 billion plus up to the department's resources via a separate route known as reconciliation – a procedure that allows the majority to push through legislation without fear of a filibuster.
Critics of the plus up question the need to throw more money at a defense industrial base that is currently maxed out, especially as benefits for veterans and military families could be subject to reductions. An effective military ultimately depends on well-trained, well-motivated people. Preferencing hardware over the needs of current and former members of the military would be both misguided and potentially harmful to the morale of the force going forward.
While contractors are poised to get a multi-billion dollar pay day, veterans and military personnel will be neglected, or worse. Only about 6 percent of the $150 billion proposed plus up in Pentagon spending will go to help military personnel. As for veterans, even before the reconciliation bill began to be debated the administration had announced plans to cut 80,000 jobs at the Veteran's administration, a body that is already struggling to get benefits to former service members in a timely fashion. And since the vast majority of VA personnel are involved with providing health care, those services are likely to be harder to come by. Other blows do veterans services include moves that would reduce staffing at suicide hotlines for veterans and defund basic research relevant to veterans health and safety.
Meanwhile, a source close to the negotiations told Congressional Quarterly that the biggest increases in the proposed reconciliation bill will go to shipbuilding ($29 billion), the president's Golden Dome missile defense initiative ($27 billion), munitions ($20 billion), nuclear weapons ($14 billion), emerging military technology ($14 billion), and 'air superiority' ($11 billion).
In short, something for everyone, if you happen to be a weapons contractor. Perhaps not coincidentally, the two biggest categories of proposed new spending will disproportionately funnel revenue to companies in the home states of the two main proponents of the bill, Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and House Armed Services Committee Chair Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.). Ingalls Shipbuilding employs 11,000 workers at its Pascagoula, Mississippi facility, and Huntsville, Alabama is known as 'Rocket City' because of the large cluster of companies that build missiles and missile defense systems there.
The main winners from increased shipbuilding funds will be Virginia (HII corporation's Newport News Facility that builds aircraft carriers and attack submarines), Connecticut (General Dynamics' Electric Boat ballistic missile submarine plant), and Maine (General Dynamics Bath Shipyards plant).
Golden Dome funds will help both old guard contractors like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and Boeing that already make interceptors, satellites, and communications systems relevant to missile defense, and emerging military tech firms like Anduril, which has won contracts for anti-drone technology.
As Congress considers showering the Golden Dome project with taxpayer funds, members should consider that the vast majority of independent scientific experts believe that a foolproof defense system against all forms of missile attack - especially high speed ICBMs – may be physically impossible, not to mention exorbitantly expensive. As Laura Grego of the Union of Concerned Scientists has noted, '[i]
t has been long understood that defending against a sophisticated nuclear arsenal is technically and economically unfeasible.'
And allocating more money for nuclear weapons when systems like the Northrop Grumman's Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile system are 81% over its original cost estimate will be throwing good money after bad. Meanwhile, given Boeing's dismal record of performance problems and cost overruns on both civilian airliners and defense systems like the Osprey aircraft and the KC-46 refueling tanker, accelerating spending on the company's new F-47 combat aircraft program is not prudent.
The Pentagon and its contractor network are having a hard time spending existing funds well. Congress should think twice before sending more taxpayer money their way.
We need a smarter, more realistic defense plan grounded in a well-compensated, well-trained defense force far more than we need to give additional billions to weapons makers that are already struggling to produce affordable, effective defense systems.