House lawmakers will be voting today on an appropriations bill to fund the military through Fiscal Year 2026 (FY26). The “Department of Defense (DoD) Appropriations Act” allocates $830 billion for various programs and priorities overseen by the Pentagon, including service member and civilian employee pay, operations, military readiness, and procurement of systems to maintain America’s tactical edge. Typically, military spending increases in every appropriations cycle, but in this case, funding is essentially flat over last year’s enacted levels—and, surprisingly, that isn’t necessarily a good thing for taxpayers.
That’s because H.R. 4016 only tells half the story. It’s true that the regular appropriations process for DoD does not allocate more than what was provided in FY25, but, unfortunately, Republican lawmakers already enacted a major boost in military spending as part of their reconciliation package, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. So, in effect, military spending is not flat at all but is instead increasing significantly.
Between reconciliation ($150 billion), traditional appropriations ($831 billion), and other various funding streams like Military Construction, total military spending will be roughly $1 trillion. This would mark the first time DoD spending tops the $1 trillion level, and is likely to account for half of total discretionary outlays if enacted.
At a period of record deficits and debts, the defense appropriations bill marks a missed opportunity to reduce spending. President Trump has already signed a generous military funding package that should serve as a down-payment toward FY26 appropriations, not a supplement to the regular process. In other words, Congress should account for what has already been provided for FY26 and pare back any wasteful spending included in the bill being considered today.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon gets a larger check every year—despite its chronic financial failures. DoD has never passed a clean audit and routinely fails to rein in wasteful spending. If any other agency mismanaged its funds like the DoD, it would be front-page news. But defense spending remains exempt from the same scrutiny we demand from every other federal agency.
At a minimum, Congress should pare back spending across all agencies; ideally, the budget should be reset to pre-COVID levels. For defense, that would mean funding at a more reasonable $636 billion. While it can be challenging to cut defense spending, the Congressional Budget Office provides a menu of reform options for members to consider to save billions across Pentagon programs. Expanding this strategy and restoring all discretionary spending to FY19 levels ($1.337 trillion) would save roughly $400 billion, cutting the deficit to about $1.5 trillion. That would represent a significant step in the right direction for fiscal sanity.
With $37 trillion in federal government debt, this example is emblematic of what happens in Washington: Congress continues to spend on a credit card as if it won’t ever have to be repaid. The result is years of billion dollar deficits added up that will need to be paid back with interest, which is how we’ve reached the situation our country is in today.
While NTU is concerned by the clear overall increase in DoD funding, we are pleased to see significant cost-cutting savings through a reduction of the civilian workforce and a codification of DOGE cuts. These changes could yield about $3.6 billion in cost-reductions. Unfortunately, these savings are offset by spending increases elsewhere, meaning, on net, these “savings” are squandered. Congress has a great deal of work to do if it intends to improve our nation’s fiscal health. We cannot afford an appropriations process that fails to recognize and address this enormous problem.