Newsfront


New Pentagon Budget Wipes Out Most of DOGE Savings


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Military has no incentive to curb soaring costs. BY BOB IVRY AND JEREMY PORTNOY


ike the weather, everyone complains about Pentagon spending and mismanage- ment, but no one does any-


thing about it. Leaders of the world’s most expen-


sive military have refused to conduct or failed to complete every internal financial audit since Congress first demanded such accountability in the 1990s. The Department of Defense owns


over 70% of the nation’s assets and can’t account for half of them. Although the Pentagon budget has


grown by 50% over the last 10 years, President Donald Trump wants to add another 12% to its budget for fiscal year 2026, a move that for the first time will boost defense spending to over $1 trillion.


COMMENTARY Is U.S. Going Broke? A


More experts worry we’re heading for default. BY SPENCER JAKAB


n illustrated Uncle Sam with pockets turned inside out and


a headline that read “Is the U.S. Going Broke?” was the cover story of America’s most influential news maga- zine in March 1972. Sounding the alarm about


a debt crisis has been great for companies shilling fishy financial products but has


8 NEWSMAX | JULY 2025


made smart, sincere people look silly when nothing happened — financial markets’ equivalent of Y2K. So why are several


suddenly worried? Because the math is getting daunting


with interest on the debt blowing past $1 trillion annually and Washington acting recklessly. Billionaire Ray Dalio,


who founded the world’s largest hedge fund and is the world’s 172nd-richest person, told Bloomberg he gives America “three years, give or take a year” to avert an economic “heart attack.” Peter Orszag, chief


executive of investment bank Lazard and a former budget director for Congress and the first Obama administration, wrote in May that “those


who bemoaned the unsustainability of deficit spending and debt levels” back during his time in government “seemed to cry wolf — a lot.” Now he’s worried, too,


because the wolf is “lurking much closer to our door.” The package of tax- and-spending measures in President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill would add around $3 trillion to debt levels over the next decade. For perspective, federal


interest this fiscal year already will be more than the defense budget and more than Medicaid, disability insurance, and


That number will almost certainly


end up higher because, by law, no matter how generous the president’s request is, the Pentagon is required to ask Congress for even more money. The chief of staff of each military branch must put together an unfund-


ed priority list — nicknamed a “wish list” — requesting money for items not included in the president’s budget. These “Dear Santa” letters totaled


at least $30.8 billion in fiscal year 2025, $17 billion in 2024, and $21.5 billion in 2023. Some of the items “wished” for in those three years include: $6.8 million for an Air Force dog


kennel $10.2 million for a “high altitude balloon” $22.5 million for “mobile kitchen


trailers” $106.6 million for a power plant in Djibouti


Although Trump created the Department of Government Efficien- cy to signal his commitment to reduc- ing and streamlining government, the president is sending mixed signals on Pentagon spending. On the one hand, the president said in an April 9 executive order that he


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