Trying to figure out how much we spend on defense is a dog's breakfast. However, once you account for nukes and some other stuff it comes to $895 billion according to CBO and would increase 2% over the next four years for a total of $913 billion by 2029.
Republicans worked hard during the budget cap process to get these small increases in defense spending. But now along comes Pete Hegseth to propose 8% cuts over the next five years for a total of $601 billion by 2030. That's a slash of more than a third.
Do Republicans plan to put up with this? With the exception of the Cold War dividend, defense spending has always increased. It's barely conceivable that they'd accept a $300 billion cut. But even for a bunch of guys whining about Diego Garcia, I guess anything is possible.
UPDATE: It turns out the House and Senate budget proposals both include defense increases of about $100-150 billion over ten years. That comes to an increase of about +$10-15 billion per year compared to Hegseth's -$70 billion per year. wtf?
I guess it depends on whether their orange shitstain says he wants it.
Wouldn't surprise me - he does want to destroy America, so... I imagine wreaking havoc amongst the "suckers and losers" in the armed forces would suit him just fine, too.
His pal in Moscow is probably in favor of big cuts to the US defense budget as well.
His pal in Moscow is probably in favor of big cuts to the US defense budget as well.
Vladonald came in from some pretty biting criticizing from Senator Tillis (R-NC) on this issue. No, it's not enough (by a long shot) but there are limits to how much even Republicans are willing to indulge the regime in its foreign policy lunacy.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/20/politics/video/gop-senator-tillis-trump-putin-cancer-speech-senate-floor-digvid
We may see more of this as Trump's numbers continue to fall, weighted down by the increasingly drastic evisceration of US state capacity, which, inevitably, isn't exempting deep red areas. I rather think Donnie didn't think through the whole "hand the keys over to Elon" thing very carefully. (I don't believe he thinks very carefully about much these days).
https://gazette.com/news/wex/republicans-frustration-with-doge-cuts-heightened-by-lack-of-answers/article_31c2491d-59a0-5253-a122-a43a87c46096.html
He doesn't think much at all. He mostly reacts. He's been delegating most of the heavy lifting to Musk and others. I think it's his M.O. When shit starts hitting the fan he'll just deny any responsibility. it's always someone else's fault.
The defence budget could be cut by half and still leave the US with the world's most powerful armed forces.
It could probably be cut by 300B and maintain its current efficacy if they cut out the pork and grift.
Anybody who thinks that cuts in government/military spending will involve cuts in “pork and grift” has never worked for the government/military.
Sadly, yes.
Maybe, but I don't think that's realistic. What would get cut instead of actual waste is stuff that actually works, because that's just how ginormously huge militaries work. The inefficiency is a cliche, but it's also just kind of innate. That's not to say that we couldn't cut out fraud and grift in the defense budget, but does anybody think the once-and-future Grifter King is talking about that if/when he talks about cuts?
Not I.
Seems to me that the US military is so low on war material that it matters little. Wars wi. Be caught differently.
The US and NATO have evolved a doctrine that doesn't involve Ukraine/Russia style grinding ground fighting. With overwhelming air and naval superiority, NATO has long presumed that all the ground troops will need to do is occupy territory and mop up. The result is that the US Army and the other NATO armies are short on the materiel needed to fight a prolonged ground war, but the Air Forces have well-stuffed arsenals. Note that you hear about artillery ammunition shortages, light anti-tank weapon shortages, etc., but you never hear of bomb shortages.
The doctrine is being reviewed in light of the Ukraine/Russia war.
The doctrine is fucking insane in light of the Ukraine/Russia war.
We need to be ready to fight a 5 year war with China, the country with most of the world's manufacturing. That means bringing a whole bunch of heavy manufacturing, especially things like ships, back onshore.
Defense spending needs to go WAY WAY up. We can save money by things like decommissioning aircraft carriers that are probably no longer able to survive in a modern war fighting environment, but we are going to need to replace them with swarns of autononous air, surface, and submarine drones including probably large number of light weight expendable drone carriers with small human crews and tons of robotics. Developing this will not be cheap and we will need the manufacturing capacity to produce 10s of thousands per year for the duration of a multi-year war, which will really not be cheap.
If Republicans and Democrats switch places on defense spending, I may have to hold my nose and vote Democrat despite their odious economic and social policies.
Meanwhile, spending cuts are vital, but as Kevin points out, although we can certainly save hundreds of billions by getting rid of waste and woke garbage we really need to save trillions and there are only a few places to get that much money:
1. Social Security - benefits will have to drop when the trust fund runs out of money rather than topping up with transfers from the Treasury or new taxes, and
2. Health Care - sorry folks, but government cannot pay for expensive treatments with limited benefits. SEND IN THE DEATH PANELS!
We can also probably cut a fair bit from education - most teaching for children older than about 10 can be done with one to one AI tutoring far better than a human teacher - but our future work force needs good educations.
Public Service Announcement:
Thank you in advance for not feeding this troll.
I was going to, but damn! The depravity, it's hard to know where to start!
The troll at least names hiim- or herself well.
- SS needs to raise the income cap annually by twice last year's inflation rate.
- The government needs to pay for prevention (vaccines, ozempic et al, dental, hearing) and emergency care and make cheap catastrophic coverage available to groups.
- The troll is right about mis-focused military
spending. We should be our own arsenal of democracy, starting with the Navy's Liberty Ships.
- Capitalism is good. Every US citizen should own a piece of the Russell 3000, starting with a gift at birth. All those firms should be Public Benefit Corporations.
I don't think it needs to go WAY WAY up. Just up. We do need to learn the lessons of the Ukraine war, but fortunately the lessons show that lots of (relatively) cheap stuff can beat some very expensive stuff. So, we can re-allocate some of our spending rather than massively increase it.
We really need to re-stock missiles and artillery shells and, as you noted, spend money on developing a defense industry that can rapidly expand production in the event of an extended war. We need to get started on that sooner rather than later. I think the Biden Administration was starting up with that.
Sadly, I do not think this Administration has the understanding, political willpower, or desire to pay the political price needed to reform our horrific procurement system, so whatever we do buy will continue to be over-priced.
“European leaders have come to understand that, after eight decades of Atlantic alliance, the United States has become a feckless and unreliable strategic partner.”
Vote for whomever you wish… the damage is done. Too late.
Congress writes the laws, not the executive branch. Congress listens to defense contractors. That's why, as you note, the defense budget basically never drops.
First of all, I'm delighted to see a post from Kevin.
I can imagine there is $300B/yr in waste in military spending, but I can't imagine that the Muscovites have found it. We spend an incredible amount for defense and intelligence gathering. We employ a huge number of contractors. There's bound to be waste there, but determining what is waste and what is essential and what represents a shrewd investment for the future is tough and way beyond me. The Muscovites don't even seem to be capable of human thought; based on their performance to date we can ignore everything they say.
It's pretty easy to see waste in hindsight. Looking forward, getting rid of the land based ballistic missiles seems more sane than upgrading them. The new expensive bomber is stupid; replace the 60 ancient B52s that are the heart of our nuclear strategic bombing force today with 200 smaller, but similar airplanes dedicated and sized for the cruise missile nuclear mission. They will be much smaller than B52s. Conventional bombing with dumb bombs from high altitude is only useful for murdering civilians. The Air Force specs its bombers for this role. We don't need bombers built for this mission. It is an unacceptable mission. It is an evil and totally unjustifiable mission.
Stop building giant aircraft carriers and build more smaller ones instead. When you realize that you've reached a dead end on some favored technology, like electromagnetic rail guns, don't try to salvage it by using it to replace better and more reliable systems for ammunition lifts and catapults.
Realize that combat aircraft designed for multiple missions are more expensive and less effective that those designed for one role. Pilots trained to be experts in multiple missions can't be experts in any. Many missions now are most cheaply achieved with missiles or drones; pilots shouldn't be risked on such missions.
So let's say that all my uninformed, wet-dream recommendations are adopted. Maybe we'd save $100B/yr over the next ten years. Probably not nearly as much.
The Pentagon's spending problems seem to be related most of all to its vast contractor base. That would be hard to deal with, so the Muscovites won't look at it at all.
Electromagnetic systems have the potential to be far more reliable than steam. In every case prior case, they are - we just haven't quite gotten linear motors to work in practice yet, but uhh, the examples are, in fact, working.
Maybe they have the potential, but they aren't there yet and might never be. The Navy spent 20 yrs trying to develop rail guns to replace cannon and gave up. Somehow they decided that a technology that couldn't reliably toss a 100 lb shell 20 miles would be perfect for slinging a 40,000 lb airplane with a pilot in it off of a carrier.
Anyhow they are relying on steam to generate the electricity for these catapults. We've been running things with stream for more than 200 yrs. It seems pretty reliable to me.
""Conventional bombing with dumb bombs from high altitude is only useful for murdering civilians. " You clearly missed the whole smart bomb revolution. Those conventional bombing mission now uses bombs that hit what we want them to hit near 100% of the time. At a tiny cost (1/20th or less) of a cruise missile
I thought I told you to sit out this hallucination until you're better. Trying to figure any of this bullshit out is worthless. Your head ain't up your ass, their's is. Being sick, how can you figure SICK people out?
Report to sick bay and heal. Copy?
I agree with the concern underlying this cautionary sentiment, but also wonder if Kevin Drum's attention to the trump maelstrom isn't helping him fight the good fight - both his own & the country's.
With my apology for not expressing it better, but not really wanting to be in disagreement, due to worrisome thoughts of his expending too much energy on jabberwocking right now.
Assuming this is based on inflation-adjusted numbers, I think what this is, is the convicted felon is seeing how, if they cut military spending by 1/3rd, they'll just hit the NATO goal of 2% of GDP, down from ~3% of GDP.
That's even while he claims to want to pivot to China and make NATO members spend 5% of GDP on military. So, what's the takeaway?
It's that he's unserious about NATO, Russia, China, and in general America's lead and dominance in global security, amirite?
With their unquestioning, obsequious support of all that he does and says, the GOP, too, is unserious about governance. Their principles are strictly limited to culture war topics and the rest is just lip service BS.
+1
my understanding is he's not proposing a cut, he's proposing diverting existing spending into a maga slush fund, to be spent at their discretion.
Up steps the Trump Media and Technology Group to siphon off $300 billion.
Read Hegseth's remarks more closely. He's not talking about cutting the top-line budget number. He's asking the existing military structure to free up that money so Trump can reallocate it to his own purposes.
The total budget won't be reduced by a nickel.
Hegseth said beginning immediately, the Pentagon will pull 8% — or roughly $50 billion — from nonlethal programs in the current budget and refocus that money on President Donald J. Trump's "America First" priorities for national defense.
"That's not a cut; it's refocusing and reinvesting existing funds into building the force that protects you, the American people," Hegseth said.
https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/4072698/hegseth-addresses-strengthening-military-by-cutting-excess-refocusing-dod-budget/
From nonlethal programs?
What is that supposed to mean?
Enormous domestic deportation force.
It’s all DEI, duh. Which is code for “get rid of all the non white men in all jobs that aren’t inherently shitty, eg janitorial staff - the blacks can keep those.”
Training? Logistics? Intelligence? You can guarantee any idea would be implemented in the dumbest possible way.
Sounds like a separate army, sort of like the S.A. or S.S.
Before the elections I thought Trump will create such army by creating "deporting immigrant militia", but it looked he is going to rely on the DOJ/FBI. Maybe he is going to do it.
I've got no problem with this. It's not my first choice for defense policy, but this is what the people voted for. Cut government spending... consequences be damned.
But if this is just some kind of scam as noted in other comments, well that's just hilarious.
I think it's safe to say if it involves Trump and or project 2025 it's a scam.
The unqualified white privilege hire has a plan! That should scare anyone.
NPR just reported that DOGE is at the Pentagon, and top-level staff will be fired. Of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Brown and Adm. Franchetti were named as targets. The only African-American and the only woman.
If any General on the Joint Chiefs allows some snot nosed kid who would faint if they had a bloody nose fire the then they should be fired.
Read your Orwell, "Republicans have always been in favor of massive defense cuts."
The Defense Department is extraordinarily inefficient. We spend so much money, we should be getting far more military strength out of it than we are. And, if MAGA was talking about perhaps procurement system reforms, for instance, I would love it and be all for them.
But how come I do not expect that is what they do if they get their wishes? Instead, it just seems like more vandalism of American foreign and security policy.
Everything they do is completely arbitrary. It's theater to prove they're serious about cutting waste. They aren't. Especially Musk. I wonder how much waste and fraud occur within his own companies?
Fully agree. Except that I know someone who works at SpaceX and he reliably tells me that (at least his part of it) is very well-run and efficient. I know, just a single datapoint...
If that's the case, it's because of site/departmental management and not Elmo. Reports have long been that upper management at the two apparently most functional enterprises (SpaceX and Tesla) have specially-designated "Elmo minders" who keep him distracted and away from everybody else if/when he shows up. For SpaceX, iirc, he actually hired a bunch of people to run it who know what they're doing and doesn't interfere too much. And at Tesla he grafted himself on top of an already functioning operation. The ones he takes a big personal interest in, like Neuralink and Twitter, I think have had the most problems. And then there's dogie; nuff said there.
I'm sick of hearing from the business world about how uniquely inefficient and sloppy and wasteful government is. As if all big, bureaucratized, segmented private companies are all just completely lean, mean, anti-flab machines. If you consider what so many of these outfits spend just on the creature comforts of their C-suites and directors, on top of what they pay them, there's plenty of excess in them. And there's good justification for a great deal of government redundancy.
+1
Word. I’m thinking now that it’s pretty much all cover for the destruction Leon really wants: the agencies that are investigating and regulating his businesses. Plus, for USAID, revenge for its opposition to apartheid. It obviously has nothing to do with efficiency.
There are some things that you avoid saying for as long as you can, for fear that just uttering the words will help bring them into being.
For as long as Vladimir Putin has been in power, his geopolitical project has been twofold: to break apart Nato and the EU. Sowing doubt and scepticism has been a prime strategy towards that end. But a tipping point has been reached, and clinging to something that no longer exists is more dangerous than naming its disappearance, so here it is.
The “west”, in any coherent sense, is over.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/feb/21/the-west-is-over-in-the-trumpian-era-europe-is-on-its-own
I agree.
Thanks in large part, if not entirely, to Donald Trump. I'm not sure if the west is over, but it's diminished to say the least. I'm afraid the E.U. will have to start doing the heavy lifting from now on. Donald Trump is well on the way to making us irrelevant.
The ‘first-world’ of prosperous democracies is losing its former most powerful (militarily and economically) member, which is moving closer to authoritarianism. The economy of the EU is already as large as that of the US; going forward it needs to become a credible military power, to deter Russian aggression.
The thought of this vile man, responsible for two bogus charitable organizations for veterans - like the one created by the non-patriot who nominated him - eagerly planning to fire actual generals for political reasons, is sickening.
They can wrap themselves in fifty US flags on every stage available, but will never be worthy of respect.
Much like Trumps election related comments about fixing inflation, it's hard to see what interest or priority of Trump's that this serves. Other than doing as Putin asks.
So does he drop it like he dropped inflation concerns? Or press on to satisfy Vlad? Hard to know.
As discusssed in other comments, it maybe diverting money for a private army.
What would Heggy (with the Convict's hand up his back) cut? Well...
* We're breaking our treaties and withdrawing from international security agreements, so all those foreign bases can be shut down, and the lazy laggards staffing them fired. Yeah, I mean the troops.
* Sell off the equipment, too. Lots of good friends -- that is, autocratic dictators that the Convict admires -- would pay top dollar for this stuff. Give 'em a 95% discount, since all that stuff is used.
* Do the same thing with the whole aircraft carrier and battleship fleets. Fire the seamen (heh! sounds like a dirty joke!) and sell off the hardware.
* B52s?? They're what? 80 or so years old? Older than Old Joe Biden! Scrap 'em. Or sell for souvenirs. Fire the crews, put the nuclear bombs up for auction. What could go wrong?
* VA?? Whassat? Why do "veterans" get special treatment? Let 'em buy their own medical insurance. Shut down all those VA clinics and hospitals, fire the doctors so they can go and make some real money in the private sector, the way Gawd and Milton Friedman intended.
Yes, there's a lot of fat there, as perceived through the eyes of the muskovites and their convict czar. Let's see them try to chainsaw it off.
a"...nd sell off the hardware"
Except the hydraulic elevators. Those are cool! Way better than those magnet ones.
Pete's due to deliver his plan for a continent-wide iron dome in just 38 days. (My count my be off a day or two.) Trump decreed it in an EO. Better get cracking, Pete.
Hegseth’s proposed cuts are all for show. He knows a Republican House/Senate/President won’t cut the military. But he can say he was willing to cut but just had to accept another budget increase
One imagines the rapey stumble drunk thinks that if he gets rid of all the "woke and DEI stuff" that will trim all the fat.
I think Hegseth is arguing for those cuts from existing programs and the money then spent on new/different programs that he prioritizes, For example. the per unit cost of F22s is falling as the plane becomes more mature, so this can be included in his 8% per year goal even though it is already included in the budget.