ProPublica Investigation Reveals Pentagon Trillion Dollar Budget Defies Transparency as Defense Spending Hits Historic Levels

ProPublica launched an investigative series on Pentagon spending, reporting that Congress appropriated $1 trillion for defense this year, more than the combined appropriations for health, veterans affairs, education, housing, agriculture and justice combined, with a proposed budget of $1.5 trillion that would exceed inflation-adjusted WWII-era defense spending 12. The Department of Defense has never received a passing grade on a comprehensive financial audit, and the agency did not respond to ProPublica's request for comment 12. The report cites cost overruns on the Zumwalt destroyer program, whose per-ship cost rose from a 1998 estimate of $1.5 billion to more than $10 billion with only three of a planned 32 ships built; the now-canceled Next Generation Operational Control System, whose GPS ground-control costs grew from $4.5 billion to over $7.5 billion before cancellation after 16 years and $6.27 billion spent; and the F-35, projected to cost $2 trillion over its lifecycle per the Government Accountability Office while remaining mission-capable only 25% of the time 12. From 2020 to 2024, five contractors, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, RTX and Northrop Grumman, received a combined $771 billion in DOD contracts; the report also documents RTX's fraudulently extracting $111 million (settled for $950 million in 2024), a supplier marking up parts by as much as 4,000%, and $7 million spent on lobster tails in a single month 12. Radio Free and Salon republished the ProPublica investigation in full 34.