As a defense hawk, I’ve long been in favor of more military spending — up to and including when the defense budget hit $1 trillion this year. But I’m experiencing real sticker shock at the Trump administration’s $1.5 trillion request for next year. In inflation-adjusted terms, that 50 percent increase would result in the largest defense budget ever — exceeding even the World War II peak.
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And this comes at a time when the federal budget deficit is at $1.8 trillion and federal debt is nearly $40 trillion. On its current trajectory, public debt as a percentage of gross domestic product in 2030 will exceed the record set in 1946. Granted, defense outlays are only 13 percent of federal spending, but you know what they say: “A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking real money.” In this case, we’re talking about another $500 billion in real money.
There is, in short, good reason Congress isn’t rushing to rubber-stamp the staggering defense budget. The House, by a narrow margin, passed a $1.15 trillion defense budget and a $73 billion supplemental to fund the Iran war. In addition to the money in the House bills, the White House wants another $350 billion via a reconciliation bill that can’t be filibustered by Democrats. But that measure appears to be DOA in the Senate. With time running out, the armed forces are likely to begin the new fiscal year on Oct. 1 under a “continuing resolution” that provides “only” $838 billion.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has no one but himself to blame. He has been contemptuous of Congress, so it’s hardly surprising that its members are not rushing to hand him a massive pot of cash. If Hegseth wants to win bipartisan support for the defense budget — something that was taken for granted in years past — he needs to start briefing Senate Democrats, not just Republicans. And he needs to do a much better job of addressing lawmakers’ concerns about controversies such as the unexplained firings of general officers, the lawless attacks on alleged drug boats, the deteriorating conditions aboard an aircraft carrier deployed to the Middle East and the failed war with Iran.
No one denies the need to replenish missile stockpiles running low because of the Iran conflict, but the very fact that the United States has used up such a large part of its missile arsenal so quickly is a damning indictment of years of defense misappropriations that long predate President Donald Trump. You would think that $1 trillion would buy enough missiles to fight China or Russia, but it turns out that we don’t even have enough to fight Iran. The Iran war also revealed that the military was woefully ill-prepared to fight an enemy equipped with low-cost drones; Iran’s drones and missiles have done serious damage to U.S. military installations in the Middle East.
It’s true that the new defense budget has a lot more money for drones and drone defenses, but it also includes massive boondoggles that can’t be justified on the merits.
The Congressional Budget Office just estimated that the 15 nuclear-powered battleships that Trump wants to build as part of his “Golden Fleet” will be at least 50 percent more expensive than initially estimated. The total price tag is $275 billion, and the first “Trump class” ship will cost $23.4 billion, making it the most expensive warship ever built. A new aircraft carrier, at $13 billion, is a bargain by comparison.
If the “Golden Fleet” ever sails, it could become target practice for Chinese drones and missiles. But it’s unlikely that it will ever see the sea because it relies on technologies, such as laser weapons and electromagnetic rail guns, that are not ready for deployment. A future administration may well cancel the whole project, but not before incurring billions in research and development costs.
The CBO estimates that the Golden Dome missile-defense system — another Trump favorite — would cost even more: a whopping $1.2 trillion. That’s nearly seven times higher than the $175 billion price tag the administration attached to this project last year, and it’s unlikely that the system will ever achieve Trump’s objective of protecting the entire country from missile or drone attack.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2026/08/18/reading-fiction-is-good-your-brain-here-why/
And then there is the additional cost, likely to be billions of dollars, of redesigning future aircraft carriers with steam catapults — all because Trump has an irrational hatred of electromagnetic catapults. The Navy would also have to spend billions more to move the command tower of future aircraft carriers from the rear to the center, as demanded by Trump on aesthetic grounds.
Under Hegseth’s weak and woeful leadership, the defense budget has become a piggy bank not just for Trump’s impractical flights of fancy but also for Trump family members. The Washington Post reported that companies in which the president’s sons Eric and Donald Jr. have invested have received at least $3.2 billion in defense contracts since the start of Trump’s second term.
Perhaps there’s a case for a $1.5 trillion defense budget, but, so far, Hegseth hasn’t made it, at least not convincingly. Indeed, The Post reported earlier this year that military officers were scrambling to figure out how to spend an extra $500 billion. Hegseth seems to have picked $1.5 trillion as the “top line” arbitrarily, rather than conducting a rigorous bottom-up analysis of what the military needs.
Trump, for his part, hasn’t given a single speech providing a detailed justification for the defense budget. His argument for it remains at the bumper-sticker level, claiming that all that extra spending will produce a “Dream Military.” But at what cost?
A far greater Republican president — Dwight D. Eisenhower — recognized that the nation must provide for its defense today without “plundering … the precious resources of tomorrow.”
“We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage,” Ike said in his 1961 farewell address warning of the dangers of an unchecked “military-industrial complex.” Those perils are particularly acute today, to the detriment of the nation’s future security.
What will happen in the 2026 midterms? Sign up for Margin of Victory
And this comes at a time when the federal budget deficit is at $1.8 trillion and federal debt is nearly $40 trillion. On its current trajectory, public debt as a percentage of gross domestic product in 2030 will exceed the record set in 1946. Granted, defense outlays are only 13 percent of federal spending, but you know what they say: “A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking real money.” In this case, we’re talking about another $500 billion in real money.
There is, in short, good reason Congress isn’t rushing to rubber-stamp the staggering defense budget. The House, by a narrow margin, passed a $1.15 trillion defense budget and a $73 billion supplemental to fund the Iran war. In addition to the money in the House bills, the White House wants another $350 billion via a reconciliation bill that can’t be filibustered by Democrats. But that measure appears to be DOA in the Senate. With time running out, the armed forces are likely to begin the new fiscal year on Oct. 1 under a “continuing resolution” that provides “only” $838 billion.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has no one but himself to blame. He has been contemptuous of Congress, so it’s hardly surprising that its members are not rushing to hand him a massive pot of cash. If Hegseth wants to win bipartisan support for the defense budget — something that was taken for granted in years past — he needs to start briefing Senate Democrats, not just Republicans. And he needs to do a much better job of addressing lawmakers’ concerns about controversies such as the unexplained firings of general officers, the lawless attacks on alleged drug boats, the deteriorating conditions aboard an aircraft carrier deployed to the Middle East and the failed war with Iran.
No one denies the need to replenish missile stockpiles running low because of the Iran conflict, but the very fact that the United States has used up such a large part of its missile arsenal so quickly is a damning indictment of years of defense misappropriations that long predate President Donald Trump. You would think that $1 trillion would buy enough missiles to fight China or Russia, but it turns out that we don’t even have enough to fight Iran. The Iran war also revealed that the military was woefully ill-prepared to fight an enemy equipped with low-cost drones; Iran’s drones and missiles have done serious damage to U.S. military installations in the Middle East.
It’s true that the new defense budget has a lot more money for drones and drone defenses, but it also includes massive boondoggles that can’t be justified on the merits.
The Congressional Budget Office just estimated that the 15 nuclear-powered battleships that Trump wants to build as part of his “Golden Fleet” will be at least 50 percent more expensive than initially estimated. The total price tag is $275 billion, and the first “Trump class” ship will cost $23.4 billion, making it the most expensive warship ever built. A new aircraft carrier, at $13 billion, is a bargain by comparison.
If the “Golden Fleet” ever sails, it could become target practice for Chinese drones and missiles. But it’s unlikely that it will ever see the sea because it relies on technologies, such as laser weapons and electromagnetic rail guns, that are not ready for deployment. A future administration may well cancel the whole project, but not before incurring billions in research and development costs.
The CBO estimates that the Golden Dome missile-defense system — another Trump favorite — would cost even more: a whopping $1.2 trillion. That’s nearly seven times higher than the $175 billion price tag the administration attached to this project last year, and it’s unlikely that the system will ever achieve Trump’s objective of protecting the entire country from missile or drone attack.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2026/08/18/reading-fiction-is-good-your-brain-here-why/
And then there is the additional cost, likely to be billions of dollars, of redesigning future aircraft carriers with steam catapults — all because Trump has an irrational hatred of electromagnetic catapults. The Navy would also have to spend billions more to move the command tower of future aircraft carriers from the rear to the center, as demanded by Trump on aesthetic grounds.
Under Hegseth’s weak and woeful leadership, the defense budget has become a piggy bank not just for Trump’s impractical flights of fancy but also for Trump family members. The Washington Post reported that companies in which the president’s sons Eric and Donald Jr. have invested have received at least $3.2 billion in defense contracts since the start of Trump’s second term.
Perhaps there’s a case for a $1.5 trillion defense budget, but, so far, Hegseth hasn’t made it, at least not convincingly. Indeed, The Post reported earlier this year that military officers were scrambling to figure out how to spend an extra $500 billion. Hegseth seems to have picked $1.5 trillion as the “top line” arbitrarily, rather than conducting a rigorous bottom-up analysis of what the military needs.
Trump, for his part, hasn’t given a single speech providing a detailed justification for the defense budget. His argument for it remains at the bumper-sticker level, claiming that all that extra spending will produce a “Dream Military.” But at what cost?
A far greater Republican president — Dwight D. Eisenhower — recognized that the nation must provide for its defense today without “plundering … the precious resources of tomorrow.”
“We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage,” Ike said in his 1961 farewell address warning of the dangers of an unchecked “military-industrial complex.” Those perils are particularly acute today, to the detriment of the nation’s future security.
