Waste of the Day: DOD Spending Lacks Transparency, Checks
Topline: Recent reports have revealed continued spending on two controversial parts of the Department of Defense’s budget — congressional increases and unfunded priority “wish lists” — that send billions of dollars to projects the military arguably does not need and oftentimes does not even want.
Key facts: The president submits a budget request every year to tell Congress how much money he believes each federal agency should receive, but the DOD receives special treatment during the process. The secretary of defense must list additional “wish list” items the military should receive money for in excess of the president’s request.
The lists became a legal requirement in 2017, leaving the Pentagon vulnerable to unnecessarily high spending. Even if the president were to hypothetically request $10 trillion for the Pentagon, military officials would be required to ask Congress for even more money.
Former Pentagon Comptroller Mike McCord opposed the wish lists, telling Elizabeth Warren that they are “not an effective way to illuminate our top priorities.”
The wish lists are not released publicly but have been obtained by the American Enterprise Institute. They total $51.7 billion for fiscal year 2026, adding onto the record $1 trillion President Trump requested for the DOD’s budget. The U.S. Indo-Pacific Command has the largest list at $11.9 billion.
The 2026 spending bills have not been signed into law yet, but the DOD’s wish list is typically funded in its entirety.
After the wish lists are submitted, members of Congress add even more congressional increases into the Pentagon’s budget. These are functionally earmarks for items important to individual lawmakers. They are projects that the president did not think were important enough to include in his budget request, and Pentagon officials did not think were important enough to include in their wish lists.
Transparency about the increases is lacking. There is not yet any public report listing what Congress members have added into the 2026 budget, and the public only recently learned some of what was added into the 2025 budget.
Taxpayers for Common Sense estimates the cost of congressional increases in 2025 at nearly $15 billion. The watchdog noted that even though the dollar total is lower than in 2024, when increases cost $22.7 billion, it “is not an indication of congressional restraint.” The 2025 budget was a continuing resolution that mostly kept funding levels the same from 2024, and the fact that Congress members were still able to slip in increases “underscores Congress' lack of fiscal restraint when it comes to padding the Pentagon budget.”
The Pentagon typically releases a report every August listing congressional increases from the previous year, but OpenTheBooks was unable to locate one from this August. Our auditors previously filed a Freedom of Information Act request for a list of all congressional increases from 2025, but we were told that none exists.
Between the $51.7 billion for wish lists in fiscal year 2026, and $15 billion in congressional increases in 2025, this unnecessary spending totals $66.7 billion.
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Summary: When potentially wasteful military spending is required by law, it take focus off the priorities that most directly benefit our men and women in uniform.
The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com
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