By Jesse Coburn and Ruth Talbot, ProPublica
This story was originally published by ProPublica.
ProPublica has launched a new investigative series on the Pentagon’s roughly $1 trillion annual budget, which the news organization describes as vast in scale but often opaque in its accounting.
What Happened: Congress appropriated about $1 trillion for defense this year — more than twice the combined appropriations for the agencies overseeing health, veterans affairs, education, housing, agriculture and justice, according to ProPublica’s analysis. If President Donald Trump’s priorities for next year’s budget prevail, defense spending would rise to $1.5 trillion, which ProPublica notes would exceed, adjusted for inflation, what the country spent annually on defense at the height of World War II.
Why It’s Opaque: ProPublica reporters Jesse Coburn and Ruth Talbot write that determining what the money actually pays for requires cross-referencing thousands of pages of financial tables, accounting records and congressional committee documents. The Department of Defense has never received a passing grade on a comprehensive financial audit. “There’s no way that you can follow the money, because it keeps getting twisted like a Rubik’s Cube,” John Ferrari, a retired Army major general and nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, told ProPublica. “None of it is set up to be transparent.”
Cost Overruns: The report highlights three major weapons programs that were promised as affordable but ran years behind schedule and far over budget:
— The F-35 fighter jet’s per-plane cost rose from an early estimate of $101 million to $181 million, with total program costs projected at $2 trillion — the Pentagon’s most expensive weapon system in history, per the Government Accountability Office. F-35s are able to perform all of their missions only a quarter of the time, ProPublica reports.
— The Zumwalt-class destroyer’s per-ship cost grew from an estimated $1.5 billion to $10.4 billion; only three of an originally planned 32 ships were built.
— A GPS satellite ground-control system’s cost rose from $4.5 billion to more than $7.5 billion before the program was canceled after 16 years and $6.27 billion in costs, including payments to contractor RTX (formerly Raytheon Technologies).
Where the Money Goes: From 2020 to 2024, five companies — Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, RTX and Northrop Grumman — received Department of Defense contracts worth a combined $771 billion, according to the report. RTX separately admitted in 2024 to schemes that defrauded the Pentagon, including on Patriot missile systems, paying over $950 million to resolve federal investigations.
The Other Side: ProPublica notes that not everyone views the spending as excessive. Measured as a share of gross domestic product, U.S. defense spending has fallen from previous highs, and defense hawks argue American weapons remain in high demand worldwide. “Weapons are expensive because our standards are high,” longtime defense lobbyist Jim Dyer told ProPublica. “The outcomes are good.” The Pentagon did not respond to ProPublica’s request for comment; Lockheed Martin, RTX, General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman also declined to comment or did not respond.
What’s Next: This overview kicks off a series of investigative stories from ProPublica examining Pentagon spending under the Trump administration, building on the outlet’s first installment about a $533 million artillery factory that produced nothing, which VIRA Broadcasting covered on Aug. 17.
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