The Pentagon’s ambitions for a three-pronged surge in military spending were met with stiff resistance in Congress this week, and there’s likely more where that came from.

At the top of the list is of course the Pentagon’s base budget request for Fiscal Year 2027, which clocks in at roughly $1.15 trillion, a 28 percent increase over this year’s base budget of about $900 billion.

Then there’s the $350 billion boost the Pentagon is demanding through what would be this Congress’ third round of budget reconciliation, aptly referred to as Reconciliation 3.0. This brings the Pentagon’s request for FY2027 to $1.5 trillion, a 45 percent increase over this year’s overall Pentagon budget (including Reconciliation 1.0, last summer’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act).

And then of course, the long-anticipated Iran War supplemental dropped this week, at a total price tag of nearly $88 billion, which includes $67 billion for the Pentagon and an amalgamation of other related and unrelated spending, which one imagines was designed to sweeten the deal.

For those keeping track, that’s $667 billion increase they’re pursuing—2/3 of a trillion dollars—in one year. It’s a 52 percent increase over this year’s total Pentagon budget, or a 78 percent increase over this year’s base budget.

Base Budget Bifurcation

In the House Appropriations Committee’s markup of the Defense Appropriations Act (the Pentagon’s base budget) on Wednesday, lawmakers passed the bill out of committee with a topline of $1.072 trillion, in line with the president’s request (it’s lower than the $1.15 trillion we mentioned earlier not because they cut it, but because money for military construction and nuclear warheads moves in separate spending bills). The bill passed out of committee in a vote of 34-27, entirely on party lines.

After virtually unprecedented defections on passage of the National Defense Authorization Act (the Pentagon’s annual policy bill) during House and Senate Armed Services Committees markups earlier this month, appropriators who opposed the spending bill echoed their counterparts on the authorizing committees, opposing the bill on the basis of its high topline and the unauthorized war with Iran.

Those weren’t the only objections of course. But in opening statements, Democrats made their biggest sticking point—the over $1 trillion Pentagon budget—crystal clear.

While the bill ultimately advanced, the unified minority opposition sends an important signal to the committee’s Senate counterpart. Paired with the strong showings in the Armed Services Committees, it should strengthen the hand of advocates for a more fiscally responsible topline. That’s good news for taxpayers, who oppose the Pentagon’s proposed increase by a 2-1 margin. Ultimately, the majority will need 60 votes to pass the spending bills, which means leadership will need to work with Democrats and fiscal hawks to get it done. All signs so far suggest a lower topline will need to be a part of any resolution.

Reconciliation Riptide

War Secretary Pete Hegseth made his way through the bowels of the Capitol this week to make his case to Republicans for the Pentagon’s $350 billion reconciliation request. While Republicans on the Armed Services Committee, who would have jurisdiction over the funds, welcomed the pitch with the excitement of a kid in a candy shop, Republican appropriators endured the pitch with the warmth of wet blanket.

But importantly, it’s not just appropriators throwing cold water on the reconciliation gambit. The House Freedom Caucus sent House Speaker Mike Johnson a list of demands that would need to be met for them to support another party-line reconciliation bill, including a demand for “strict dollar-for-dollar and year-for-year spending cuts.” While making a third reconciliation package budget neutral would be a welcome return to fiscal responsibility, the cuts they envision to pay for the Pentagon’s $350 billion slush fund would likely cost the bill votes from moderate Republicans who oppose some of these cuts. Assuming both wings of the Republican party stick to their guns, the third reconciliation bill would be all but dead-on-arrival.

Again, that’s good news for taxpayers, who can ill afford to lavish more money on a literally unaccountable Pentagon that already saw an 18 percent increase in funding this year.

Sorry Supplemental

Finally, the aforementioned Iran War supplemental. We issued a statement laying out our main beefs with this $88 billion request, but here are the broad strokes.

Ignoring the reality that the war was never authorized, the administration sent a request for $67 billion to pay for it ($12 billion of which is classified). The request also included $11.1 billion to help ag interests keep profits up in spite of the president’s trade war, a $1 billion to complete Penn Station in New York City, and $500 million “to complete restoration and construction projects in and around Washington, D.C.”

From all accounts, there is a legitimate need to replenish certain munitions depleted during the Iran War. But the Pentagon is awash with cash. It has roughly $100 billion left from last summer’s reconciliation bill, which the Pentagon is now rushing to spend to avoid losing a portion of it at the end of the fiscal year.

A more realistic explanation of the money grab is that the administration is trying to secure what it believes may be its last best chance at an increase in funding this year as plans for additional reconciliation funds and a dramatically increased base budget fray. Congress, for its part, seems less than supportive as well.

The Bottom Topline

The nation is nearly $40 trillion in debt and is paying $1 trillion a year to service that debt. That’s not just a fiscal problem; it’s a national security threat. Reining in the debt requires reining in an agency that draws roughly half of the discretionary budget every year; the only federal agency that’s never passed an audit: the Pentagon. Taxpayers deserve a Congress willing to do that difficult but necessary work. This year at least, we have some cause for hope.