The Myth Of Pentagon Budget Cuts

As Trump and Musk slash social spending, military spending is set to soar.

By Stephen Semler and Sarah Lazare, In These Times

It’s a striking headline. ​“Trump administration orders Pentagon to plan for sweeping budget cuts,” reports the Washington Post. ​“Hegseth orders major Pentagon spending cuts,” says Politico. Such news is remarkable because, while reducing the Pentagon’s budget is popular with the public, it’s largely considered profane in Washington.

There’s just one problem: It didn’t happen. Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth never ordered any cuts; rather, his order was merely to shift funding from some military programs into others. That’s reshuffling the Pentagon budget, not cutting it.

One only has to look at Hegseth’s own words to confirm this. In a statement on February 20, he said the Pentagon would rely on DOGE to ​“find fraud, waste and abuse in the largest discretionary budget in the federal government.” But then, he added, such cutting ​“allows us to reinvest elsewhere.” The supposed 8% of cuts will come from ​“nonlethal programs” and that money will instead go toward ​“America First” priorities of Trump. These include an alarming military buildup at the border with Mexico, an absurd ​“Iron Dome” project, and accelerated militarization of the Indo-Pacific region.

As media outlets run sensational articles about DOGE’s non-cuts to the military, Congress is actually advancing real increases to military spending. Trump has endorsed a Republican budget resolution, which passed the House this week, that includes an extra $100 billion more in the Pentagon’s budget. The resolution would impose deep cuts across agriculture, education, energy, health, infrastructure, transportation and more, including to vital social welfare programs like Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly food stamps), upon which tens of millions of people rely. Generally speaking, if it’s not related to military or border security, it’s likely on the chopping block.

One telling indicator is that military industry investors are confident. The S&P Aerospace & Defense Select Industry Index, an index which represents the arms industry, is up 4.1% since Trump’s election and a whopping 21.18% since February of last year. And some leading military industry executives are publicly praising Elon Musk and DOGE for their deregulation and industry friendliness. In other words, if Trump is a threat to the military-industrial complex, no one bothered to tell the military-industrial complex.