As Congress belatedly works to finalize the budget for fiscal 2025, some lawmakers are pushing to dramatically increase Pentagon spending, claiming that we need a “generational investment” to meet the national security challenges we face.
The truth is, we don’t. Rather, we need to realign our national security strategies for the challenges we face, and then fund the programs those strategies require while cutting the programs they don’t.
First, let’s dispel the myth that the U.S. military is underfunded. Clocking in at $850 billion in the last fiscal year, the U.S. military is the most well-funded fighting force on the planet. Adjusted for inflation, last year’s military spending marked a nearly 50 percent increase since the turn of the 21st Century.
Despite this astounding growth, last May, Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), the top Senate recipient of campaign contributions from the military industry in the 2024 election cycle and the senior most Republican on the Armed Services Committee, laid out a plan to ramp up U.S. military spending to 5 percent of GDP.
That would mean spending an additional $500 billion on top of the Pentagon’s current $850 billion budget, an additional increase of more than 58 percent. As a starting point, Wicker’s plan proposed adding an additional $110 billion over two years. Less than a year later, he is now calling for a $200 billion increase over two years.
Other lawmakers also seem eager to boost Pentagon spending, with the House Freedom Caucus proposing an additional $100-$200 billion over four years, and House leadership reportedly aiming for a $125 billion increase.
While they disagree on the amount, all of these plans share two things: they fail to explore opportunities for eliminating wasteful Pentagon spending, and they fail to consider the fiscal implications of such dramatic increases.
Failing to consider cuts to the Pentagon budget is incredibly short-sighted from a national security perspective. Cutting unnecessary, underperforming, and obsolete Pentagon programs would not only save money that could be put towards actual priorities; it would also free up our service members to focus on platforms that are better suited to perform in today’s complex security environment.
For instance, with advancements in hypersonic technology, large platforms like aircraft carriers may not survive for long in the event of a peer-level conflict. Yet we’re still planning to purchase more of them, at a cost of roughly $20 billion per ship. House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Ken Calvert (R-Calif.) recently suggested that Congress consider cutting back investments in aircraft carriers, asking, “Will aircraft carriers be survivable in modern warfare when the Chinese right now have 1,200 operational hypersonic missiles that can be clustered at Mach 6, Mach 7?” None of these plans to increase Pentagon spending wrestle with this question.
Similarly, the F-35 is projected to cost taxpayers $2 trillion over the course of its lifecycle, yet it is only fully operational 30 percent of the time. Even a modest cut to the program could save taxpayers billions in the long run while allowing for more investments in systems that can actually perform their missions.
These spending plans also overlook opportunities for future savings. The Air Force is considering plans to field a new generation of crewed fighter aircraft projected to cost $300 million apiece — while more affordable alternatives like fielding uncrewed fighters or focusing on long-range fires and ground-based air defenses have been largely dismissed.
Failing to account for our nation’s $36 trillion debt is the second major shortcoming of these proposed Pentagon spending hikes. With annual interest payments to service that debt now surpassing military spending, a $100-200 billion increase in Pentagon spending over two years would accelerate our debt spiral and imperil the long-term availability of funds across the board, including for national security.
In fiscal terms, voting to pass a budget with a massive Pentagon spending increase would be a violation of Congress’ fiduciary duty to American taxpayers. In human terms, it would be a disservice to our military service members, who would be forced to continue operating antiquated, unnecessary and underperforming systems so the companies that make them can continue to cash in. And in strategic terms, it would be a detriment to our national security, which requires strategic prioritization, not an unsustainable spending spree.
Gabe Murphy is a policy analyst at Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan budget watchdog advocating for transparency and calling out wasteful spending.
