Stop the Pentagon’s September spending spree — and – Latest News
President Trump might need a Defense Department rebrand — however moderately than altering its title to “Department of War,” he ought to drive the Pentagon to stop being a division of waste.
Our investigators at Open the Books final month recognized 20 areas of fiscal concern within the Pentagon, many of them tolerated for many years, that injury its warfighting skills.
The Defense Department has long been a “department of everything,” working its own colleges, grocery shops, golf programs and more — splitting its focus and permitting for rampant overspending.
The division has by no means handed an audit, makes use of overclassification to wrongly conceal packages from oversight, and squanders billions yearly by means of lax contracting practices and questionable congressional earmarks.
Even the most fiscally prudent administration would wrestle to reform all that systemic Pentagon waste without delay.
But one reform Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ought to deal with at once is the Pentagon’s gratuitously wasteful “use it or lose it” spending binge that occurs at the finish of each fiscal yr.
This month, federal bureaucrats throughout Washington are speeding to spend all the money Congress appropriated for his or her departments this fiscal yr earlier than the clock runs out on Sept. 30.
The purpose is to exhaust all these funds as justification for requesting even more in the coming yr.
Outside of safety-net packages, Defense spends more than some other division — and has requested one other record-breaking $961.6 billion for fiscal yr 2026.
That means it’s the first place the place the “use it or lose it” behavior have to be damaged.
Since 2008, each Republican and Democratic administrations have thrown protection money out the window every September at more than double the regular month-to-month charge.
Under President George W. Bush, the Pentagon spent a file $85.4 billion on contracts and grants in September 2008.
During Trump’s first time period, the two costliest months for protection spending got here in September 2018 ($63.3 billion) and September 2019 ($59.4 billion).
Get opinions and commentary from our columnists
Subscribe to our day by day Post Opinion e-newsletter!
Thanks for signing up!
And in September 2024, close to the finish of President Joe Biden’s tenure, the spree reached $79 billion — more than the annual protection price range of all however seven nations on Earth.
In simply the final 5 days of that fiscal yr, the Pentagon burned by means of $33.1 billion, more than Israel’s whole annual protection price range for 2023.
What did taxpayers buy final September?
Among different issues: $6.1 million in lobster tail; $30.1 million in books, newspapers and periodicals; and $211.7 million in new furnishings — expenditures that had been more about luxurious than lethality.
Furniture spending specifically noticed a dramatic rise over the average month-to-month outlay of $52.7 million.
Hegseth has the energy to make this September totally different.
He can order commanders and procurement officers to spend responsibly, refuse to rubber-stamp doubtful contracts, and reward self-discipline moderately than indulgence.
Ending the binge would ship a clear signal: The period of use-it-or-lose-it is over.
In an splendid world, Congress would have already eradicated this Pentagon rip-off by giving the administration more leeway to hold over or redirect unspent funds to essential protection priorities.
Still, this administration has not been reluctant to claim its price range authority.
If Trump can hit pause on overseas food help or the supply of life-saving HIV medication, he can actually pause orders for lobster tail.
In February, Hegseth mentioned the Pentagon would discover $50 billion in financial savings within the division.
He began doing so in March, when he canceled over $580 million value of contracts and program spending associated to range, equity, and inclusion efforts and decarbonization initiatives.
In May, he added $5.1 billion in further contract cuts for “ancillary things like consulting and other nonessential services,” together with more DEI-related trims.
Open the Books has long tracked spending in the Pentagon’s Okay-12 faculty system, the Department of Defense Education Activity, whose $2.3 billion price range educates about 67,000 navy dependents close to navy bases worldwide.
That quantities to $34,328 spent per pupil yearly — more than any state in the union, together with New York.
Some of that largesse goes to social engineering initiatives moderately than core topics: Video of a 2022 DoDEA trainer convention confirmed its workers bragging about hiding scholar gender transitions from navy dad and mom.
Hegseth is correct to focus on “woke” spending, however he must wage a wider battle on waste in his division.
Ending use-it-or-lose-it this month would ship a highly effective signal. American taxpayers, and our potential adversaries, are watching.
John Hart is the CEO of Open the Books, a authorities spending watchdog.
