Pentagon seeks $1.5 trillion as Iran war costs hit $25 billion

By Brett Rowland
The Center Square

The Trump administration asked Congress on Wednesday to approve the largest military budget in American history, a $1.5 trillion request that would increase defense spending by more than 40%.

Some lawmakers questioned whether the Pentagon can responsibly absorb the money and whether the ongoing war with Iran has achieved its goals.

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified before the House Armed Services Committee in support of the fiscal year 2027 budget request, which builds on last year’s $1 trillion baseline and includes $153 billion in mandatory funding through the Working Families Tax Cut Act.

The budget would fund a 76% increase in procurement, a 64% increase in research and development and a 24% increase in operations and maintenance. It calls for adding 44,000 service members, a pay raise of up to 7% for junior enlisted troops and more than $17 billion to begin construction of the Golden Dome missile defense system.

Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Ala., framed the request as a long-overdue correction to decades of underfunding.

He said the U.S. builds one-tenth of 1% of the world’s ships, less than Croatia or the Netherlands, while China builds 47% of global shipping.

“For the first time in over 40 years, we’ve been presented a budget that accounts for the true cost of American deterrence,” Rogers said.

Caine told the committee the budget would double investment in shipbuilding and aircraft production and fund more than $26 billion in multiyear munitions procurement contracts. He said the request also includes the largest investment in research, development, testing and evaluation in American history.

The budget request does not include costs related to the ongoing conflict with Iran. Jules Hurst III, the acting undersecretary of war for finances, told the committee the war has cost an estimated $25 billion, most of it spent on munitions, with additional costs for running operations and replacing equipment. The administration is expected to send Congress a separate supplemental funding request.

Ranking Member Adam Smith, D-Wash., questioned whether those costs had produced results.

“As we sit here today, Iran’s nuclear program is exactly what it was before this war started. They have not lost their capacity to inflict pain. They still have a ballistic missile program. They’re still able to block the Strait of Hormuz and have the ships that are capable of doing that,” Smith said.

Hegseth defended the U.S. actions.

“You have to stare down this kind of enemy who is hell bent on getting a nuclear weapon and get them to the point where they’re at the table and giving it up,” he said.

Early Wednesday, President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social that Iran needed to move faster on a nuclear deal.

“Iran can’t get their act together. They don’t know how to sign a nonnuclear deal. They better get smart soon!” the U.S. president wrote.

Rogers credited U.S. troops with giving the president “the opening he needs to negotiate a true and lasting peace” with Iran, while Smith cited 13 service members killed and hundreds wounded as evidence of the war’s cost.

Smith also challenged the administration’s fiscal rationale, pointing to a $40 trillion national debt and the Pentagon’s failure to pass eight consecutive financial audits. “We need to pay as much attention to how we’re spending the money as to how much we’re spending,” he said.

Hegseth pledged the department would pass a clean financial audit by 2028, a deadline he called non-negotiable. The Pentagon has never passed an audit since the requirement took effect.

Hegseth had sharp words for critics of the budget.

“The biggest challenge, the biggest adversary we face at this point are the reckless, feckless and defeatist words of congressional Democrats and some Republicans,” he said.