Trump calls for $1.5 trillion military budget despite audit failures

By Brett Rowland
The Center Square

President Donald Trump wants a much larger military budget despite the Pentagon’s continued failure to accurately account for its spending.

Trump proposed a $1.5 trillion budget for the Department of War after talks with lawmakers.

“This will allow us to build the ‘Dream Military’ that we have long been entitled to and, more importantly, that will keep us SAFE and SECURE, regardless of foe,” the president wrote in a social media post.

Trump said that tariff revenue could help cover the 60% military budget increase, along with tariff rebate checks and funds to reduce the federal government’s $38.4 trillion in debt.

An analysis from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimated Trump’s plan would boost defense spending by $5 trillion over the next decade. When interest is included, that figure would grow to $5.8 trillion. The group noted that tariff revenue wouldn’t cover the bill.

“In reality, the military spending increase would be about twice as large as expected tariff revenue,” according to the analysis.

U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, endorsed Trump’s plan to hike military spending.

“This is exactly the kind of investment it will take to rebuild our military and restore American leadership on the world stage,” Wicker and Rogers said in a joint statement. “America faces intensifying global threats from China, Russia, Iran, and narco-terrorists.”

They also said Americans would see the results through “tangible hard power: accelerated shipbuilding and aircraft production, a modernized arsenal, and innovative technologies that ensure our warfighters remain unmatched.”

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said the proposed $1.5 trillion budget would be “a message to the world.”

Some Democrats slammed the plan, noting the Pentagon can’t fully account for its spending and doesn’t expect to be able to do so before 2027. U.S. Reps. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., and Mark Pocan, D-Wis., co-chairs of the Defense Spending Reduction Caucus, said the Pentagon should be held to the same budgetary standards as other federal agencies. They noted the Department of War failed its eighth consecutive audit in December 2025.

“We cannot justify continuing to increase the Pentagon’s budget when the agency cannot even successfully pass a fiscal audit,” they said in a statement. “The lack of accountability and transparency at the Pentagon is simply unacceptable, yet Congress continues to pour more and more taxpayer dollars into the agency each year. No other federal agency would be allowed to operate this way.”

Last June, the Department of War told Congress it would be able to successfully account for all of its spending and assets by 2028.