America’s Dilemma at 250

A Budget of the Pentagon, By the Congress and For the War Profiteers

BILL ASTORE

JUL 13, 2026

Note to Readers: The short essay below represents a joint effort of the Eisenhower Media Network, or EMN, an organization of former military and government officials who seek a wiser course for America and a more peaceful world. I’ve been a member since EMN’s founding.

In Common Sense, Thomas Paine challenged Americans to question an institution that had long seemed beyond challenge. He wrote, “A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right.” Two hundred and fifty years later, those words apply just as well to America’s defense budget. What has become accepted through habit is neither sustainable nor accountable. Only the American people can change it.

The “defense of custom” now comes from the Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex that President Dwight Eisenhower warned against in his farewell address. Years earlier, in his famous “Cross of Iron” speech, Eisenhower observed: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed… Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.”

More than seventy years later, Eisenhower’s warning has become reality. The United States spends more on its military than the next eight countries combined, most of them allies, while millions of Americans struggle with the costs of health care, child care, education, and housing.

The Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex thrives by portraying every international challenge as justification for ever-larger Pentagon budgets. Defense contractors finance political campaigns and employ armies of lobbyists who help shape the annual National Defense Authorization Act. Taxpayer dollars then flow back into executive compensation, shareholder dividends, stock buybacks, and continued political influence, creating a self-perpetuating cycle that rewards corporate profits rather than national security. Even maintenance contracts are often structured so that only the original contractor can repair the equipment, locking taxpayers into decades of additional costs. The troubled F-35 fighter program—billions over budget, years behind schedule, and only partially mission capable—has become a symbol of this dysfunction.

Yet despite these enormous expenditures, America’s recent military record raises serious questions about whether ever-increasing budgets produce better outcomes. Since World War II, the United States has rarely achieved the political objectives it set out to accomplish in major conflicts, despite possessing the world’s largest military establishment and one of the most geographically secure nations on Earth.

Even more troubling, the Pentagon remains unable to account for how it spends taxpayer money. It has repeatedly failed the financial audits required by law, something every other federal department has managed to complete. Nevertheless, it is now requesting a budget approaching $1.5 trillion. Asking taxpayers to approve such an increase before explaining where previous funding went reflects a level of fiscal irresponsibility that would be unacceptable anywhere else in government—or in any American household.

Thomas Paine understood that institutions derive their power not only from force but from unquestioned assumptions. Britain’s empire appeared invincible in 1776 until Americans decided its authority no longer deserved their consent. Today, questioning the continual expansion of military spending may seem equally unfashionable, but history reminds us that accepted practices are not always wise ones.

A $1.5 trillion Pentagon budget represents more than $9,000 per taxpayer. As America marks its 250th anniversary, we should ask whether endless increases in military spending truly make us more secure, or whether they come at the expense of the investments that strengthen our nation at home. The courage required today is not to defeat an empire abroad, but to confront the entrenched interests of the Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex and reclaim a government that serves the American people rather than the economics of perpetual war.