The problem isn’t the $124,000 Pete Hegseth’s Department of Defense spent on ice cream machines last September. Or the $15.1 million they spent on ribeye steak. Or even the $26,000 they dropped on sushi prep tables. Knowing what we know about Pete Hegseth, we should be thankful there were tables and not that whole “eat your sashimi off a naked lady” presentation.
The problem is that every last week of September is Christmas at the Pentagon.
Open the Books, which tracks government spending, writes: “In the last five working days of September alone, the DoD spent $50.1 billion on grants and contracts. That’s more than the annual defense budget of countries like Israel and Italy.”
Why all the profligate spending during the five days formally best known as “Deaf Dog Awareness Week”? (Yes, that’s a real thing.)
Because that’s the end of the Pentagon’s fiscal year. Any monies remaining from the previous year get returned to the Treasury. Can’t have that! So the Air Force Chief of Staff gets himself a $100,000 Steinway piano, and $12,540 goes toward “three-tiered fruit basket stands.” I know that sounds wasteful, but those two-tiered fruit basket stands are trash. Hoo-ah!
Ragging on the Pentagon’s wasteful spending has been a fun parlor game since at least the days of the “$600 toilet seat” scandal. When George H.W. Bush tried to refashion the armed forces into a leaner post–Cold War force after the Soviet Union collapsed, Congress reacted the way Congress always reacts when a military base is threatened: it protected every installation, contract, and procurement program as if it were the last Blockbuster Video in America.
This is how you end up with a defense budget that has grown to roughly $850 billion a year—yes, the United States spends about $2.3 billion per day on defense. Well, on defense and high-end seafood. At least that’s what we used to spend before adding another couple bil for every day of this insane Iran “excursion.” Put another way, if you’ve been reading this article for five minutes, the Pentagon has spent enough money to buy every person in Cleveland a very respectable used Honda Accord.
Most of that spending is not ridiculous. The Department of Defense employs about 1.3 million active-duty service members, another 800,000 reservists, and roughly 750,000 civilian workers. It runs hospitals, schools, research labs, and logistics operations spanning the globe. It maintains thousands of aircraft, ships, satellites, and armored vehicles. As it turns out, national defense ain’t cheap.
None of this is unique to the Pentagon. Federal agencies across the government engage in end-of-year spending for exactly the same reason. But the sheer scale of the budget means that even small inefficiencies quickly balloon into absurdities.
Take the Pentagon’s finances. Congress required the Department of Defense to undergo a full audit beginning in 2018, something every major corporation in America manages to do annually without needing a team of forensic Indiana Joneses. It has failed to do so every single time. And yet, somehow has faced no consequences for it. Honestly, the Pentagon’s finances make Trump’s money-management skills look downright responsible.
None of this means the military shouldn’t spend money. A superpower does not defend itself on coupons and good vibes. Maintaining alliances, projecting power, deterring adversaries, and supporting service members requires major moolah. But the late-September spending spree reveals a structural problem so simple it would embarrass a high school economics teacher.
The rule is called “use it or lose it.”
If a government office fails to spend the money allocated to it during the fiscal year, Congress might look at the leftovers and conclude that the agency clearly didn’t need it in the first place. And then they might turn around and spend that filthy, reclaimed lucre on healthcare of universal pre-K. Terrible!
So what’s the rational thing for a manager to do? Spend, spend, spend! Buy everything on everybody’s wish list and then buy yourself a little something nice. Spend like it’s your job. Because it is.
Imagine telling your kid that any allowance money they don’t spend by Saturday will be returned to Mom and Dad. By Friday night, they’re walking out of Target with a lava lamp, three hoodies, and a novelty mug in the shape of Baby Yoda. The Pentagon is that teenager, except its allowance hits twelve digits.
So the last week of September becomes a fiscal Mardi Gras. Contracts signed. Equipment ordered. Chocolate fountains filled to overflowing.
And the irony is that everyone involved knows the system is flawed.
Budget analysts complain about it. Auditors document it. Lawmakers hold hearings about it. Then the fiscal year rolls around again, and the whole thing repeats itself like a ritual animal sacrifice, except the goats cost 50 billion dollars.
Meanwhile, the political incentives run in the opposite direction. Suggest trimming defense spending and get accused of weakening the military. Suggest canceling a weapons program and discover that the parts for that program are strategically manufactured in seventeen congressional districts, each represented by a member of Congress who would very much like to keep wearing their super-special lapel pins.
And so the war machine keeps on keepin’ on. At the expense of SNAP beneficiaries, healthcare, education, infrastructure and other stuff that doesn’t go boom. Worse, for 2027, Trump wants to glob another $500 billion of your money onto the Pentagon’s budget. This is money they didn’t ask for, but will sure as shit figure out how to spend. Maybe on toppling Cuba or maybe on a bunch of Sharper Image massage chairs. Who knows? Who cares? It’s just money we don’t have. So party on, Pete. If we’re going to burn through $50 billion in five days, the least we can do is make sure everyone gets sprinkles.
