Where Hegseth Might Find His $50 Billion "Cuts"

Actually, no cuts. Just More Money for Silicon Valley.

Although President Trump reportedly invoked the possibility of cutting defense spending in half during his telephone call with President Putin, it seems abundantly clear that the miitary budget will continue on its upward trajectory. For a brief moment there was indeed talk of an 8 percent cut, but as the Trumpian leadership newly installed in the Pentagon has made clear, the 8% is to be an “offset,” money that will be saved on existing programs and shifted to more favored recipients of the new regime’s patronage. In a sane world, saving real money should not be hard. Everywhere one looks in the budget, there are billions crying to be tossed into the shredder, as Elon Musk would say. How about the $3.7 billion the air force is asking for the Sentinel ICBM in FY 2025, not to mention the adjacent $1.1 billion for the W-87.1 nuclear warhead it will carry? The B-21 bomber, a study in uselessness, is slated to get $2.7 billion this year. The Navy wants $3.3 billion for the second of its ill-starred (at least 18 months behind schedule) Columbia class missile subs and about $6.2 billion in advance procurement for subsequent boats. Then there’s $2.9 billion to modernise facilities for plutonium pit production, essential for nuclear weapons, an egregious boondoggle even by the standards of the weapons labs who crafted the initiative. (The U.S. already has about 4,000 pits on hand, and they remain “useful” for 150 years.)