Last week, the Senate Armed Services Committee unveiled its $750 billion defense authorization bill for the upcoming fiscal year, complying with President Trump’s request to raise the military’s budget by 3.1% — the largest boost in a decade. This gargantuan spending increase is unnecessary given the current strength of America’s military and the Pentagon’s poor track record of budgetary waste. It’s high time that Americans hold the military industrial complex accountable.
Currently, the United States spends more on defense than the next seven countries combined — China, Saudi Arabia, India, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and Germany. Keeping in mind some of those countries are close allies, it simply makes no sense to spend as if another Cold War is around the corner. While hostile international actors certainly remain, none amount to the existential threat that was the USSR for the better half of the 20th century.
The public understands that our military is strong enough as-is. A recent Gallup poll found that just 1 in 4 Americans think that the government is spending too little on defense. This attitude is bipartisan, with even 61% of Republicans believing that defense spending is either “too much” or “about right.”
The Pentagon is notorious for its poor accounting. A 2018 audit found that only five of 21 Department of Defense agencies came out clean, leading House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith, D-Wash., to make stern comments about the president’s proposed budget increase last month:
In short, there are a lot of disturbing known unknowns with military spending, a fact that would not fly before Congress for any other government agency. There are also a number of disturbing known knowns: wasteful spending on projects that have a history of failure. For example, the Senate Armed Services Committee’s proposed budget authorizes $10 billion for purchasing 16 more F-35 Joint Strike Fighters than initially requested, shorting $162 million from the administration’s ask for F-15Xs.
The F-35 is a prime example of military waste. The combat aircraft family has received much criticism over the year for the sweetheart deal that Lockheed Martin received from the military to design, test, and produce the F-35s all at the same time instead of fixing flaws before mass production. As a result, the fleet has a long history of malfunction. As Ross Marchand explained last November in the Washington Examiner:
“Thanks to ineffective and ostensibly well-connected contractors like this one, the F-35 has been in development for nearly 17 years and is seven years behind schedule, all while total acquisition costs have surpassed $406 billion — nearly double the initial estimate of $233 billion.”
Enough is enough. For too long, the Pentagon has wastefully spent taxpayer dollars with little pushback from our elected officials. It’s time for Washington to get in line with citizens calling for more fiscally responsible military spending. The United States can afford the protection it needs without breaking the bank.
Casey Given (@CaseyJGiven) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is the executive director of Young Voices.
