For Immediate Release:

February 20, 2025

Contact:
Gabe Murphy
Policy Analyst, Taxpayers for Common Sense
gabe@taxpayer.net

Washington, D.C. – In response to reports that the Trump administration is only pursuing shifts in Pentagon spending rather than actual cuts to the Pentagon’s topline, Taxpayers for Common Sense President Steve Ellis released the following statement:

“It is beyond disappointing that President Trump, who campaigned on the promise of reigning in excessive and wasteful spending across the federal government, plans to effectively exempt the Pentagon from this process. Rather than pursuing actual cuts at the only government agency that has never passed an audit, the president is rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic of fiscal calamities—the Pentagon budget.

“Secretary Hegseth has asked the services to find $50 billion worth of cuts totaling 8 percent of their budgets, but any savings from these cuts will reportedly be redirected within the Pentagon budget. Furthermore, the Secretary has laid out exemptions to cuts that include some of the most wasteful pots of spending, from long-range missile defense systems that have proven entirely ineffective, to nuclear weapons like the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile program, which is both unnecessary and 81 percent over budget.

“At the same time, the administration has welcomed congressional proposals to increase Pentagon spending over the next two years by up to $150 billion, a massive increase that will lead to more wasteful spending and accelerate the nation’s debt crisis. In all likelihood, Congress will use this increase to reinsert funding into the budget for any major programs facing cuts in the President’s budget request, while also ramping up funding for a new generation of wasteful programs.

“Shuffling $50 billion within the Pentagon budget and calling it a cut is little more than a charlatan’s shell game, moving wasteful Pentagon spending around to trick taxpayers. We’re not fooled.”

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Taxpayers for Common Sense is a nonpartisan budget watchdog calling out wasteful spending and advocating for transparency.