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Analysis

Congressional Oversight of Defense Spending

The 119th Congress can improve the way it oversees the development and acquisition of major weapons and other systems.

Collage of an F-35, the Pentagon, a businessman fixing his tie, and a hundred dollar bill.

(Illustration: Ren Velez / POGO; Photos: Getty Images)

In 2023, the United States spent roughly $1 trillion on defense, nearly twice what China, Russia, and Iran spent combined, and yet Congress’s Commission on the National Defense Strategy claims China is “outpacing” us. At the same time, the Pentagon has never been able to pass an audit, leaving us wondering where all that money went and why our adversaries seem to be getting so much more bang for their buck. As with any enterprise that spends more than its competitors, fails anyway, and can’t explain itself, when it comes to Pentagon spending, more and better oversight is called for.

The president-elect’s creation of an advisory commission (the “Department of Government Efficiency”) offers an opportunity to identify and reduce wasteful Pentagon spending. But it’s important to note that past commissions, such as the Packard Commission, took nearly a year to develop recommendations and ultimately depended on Congress to enact their recommendations. Because meaningful oversight improvements are already within Congress’s reach, Congress should act now to improve the way defense spending is managed.

Congress can enact measures today that would lower the cost of defense, improve the effectiveness of our weapons systems relative to those of our likely adversaries, and give us a better overall understanding of how our defense dollars are spent. These reforms include closing loopholes in how defense contractors justify their prices, strengthening operational testing and evaluation, and insisting the Pentagon pass a financial audit.

Exercising Congress’s “power of the purse” effectively means always looking to drive a hard bargain with every purchase we make. But acting contrary to that principle, Congress loosened the terms of the Truth in Negotiations Act in 2022, raising the contract value threshold for transactions that require certified cost data from $750,000 to $2 million, among other changes. Congress should reverse these changes and otherwise seek greater control over defense contractor pricing, not less. 

Congress should insist on clean audits and impose financial penalties for Pentagon components that continue to fail to do so.

Understanding what the American people get for their defense dollar is also key to getting better value. Unqualified financial audits, while not a cure in and of themselves, are at least a means of quantifying the value of the Defense Department’s assets so that they can be compared year over year. Congress should insist on clean audits and impose financial penalties for Pentagon components that continue to fail to do so. 

Ensuring the weapons we buy actually work is crucial to our ability to deter and defeat our adversaries. With that in mind, the Pentagon is required to complete realistic testing of major weapons systems before authorizing full rate production. However, this is only meaningful if those reports are accessible to congressional staff and if Congress acts on the results. In the case of the F-35, over 990 aircraft were purchased before full rate production was authorized, and in 2024 when the final operational test report described numerous defects, Congress made no objection to the Defense Department authorizing full rate production. To effectively wield the “power of the purse,” Congress must insist on timelier and more accessible operational testing, and it must refuse further production when the results are unsatisfactory.

In 2023, the U.S. spent far more on defense than Russia, China, and Iran combined, and yet, according to the latest National Defense Strategy, we still don’t feel safe. Congress must exercise its constitutional roles of oversight and “power of the purse” to ensure that we are getting what we pay for.  Congress must not wait for proposals from the anticipated presidential advisory commission known as the Department of Government Efficiency, but should lose no time in enacting legislation that will lower costs, provide greater transparency, and ensure the effectiveness of costly weapons systems.

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