Military

Pete Hegseth Can't Explain Why America Needs a $1.5 Trillion Military Budget

Sen. Mark Kelly says it "feels like that number was just kind of pulled out of thin air."

Eric Boehm | 5.14.2026 2:50 PM

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With the Trump administration asking Congress for a staggering increase in military spending, you might expect Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to have a clear vision for how all that extra taxpayer money will be used.

That does not seem to be the case. At this week's appropriations hearings in the House and Senate, Hegseth and other top Pentagon officials offered few concrete answers for why the Pentagon needs $1.5 trillion next year or what huge new threats would justify that spending.

Probably the best illustration of the vapidity of the Pentagon's massive budget request comes from the department's own press release following this week's hearings, during which the media was alerted to pearls of Hegseth's wisdom like: "[This] budget will ensure the United States continues to maintain the world's most powerful and capable military, as we grapple with a complex threat environment across multiple theaters."

And: "We are firing up the American economic engine, and at every level of our defense industrial base. Every policy we pursue, every budgetary item we request, serves to ensure the department remains laser-focused on increasing lethality and survivability of our forces from the front lines to the factory floors."

This is budgeting by sound bite. It's a weird mashup of corporate jargon and campaign trail blather in place of anything that might resemble a plan for how to spend $1.5........

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