John,
“Co-president” Elon Musk has been slashing his way through the federal government in a reckless attempt to root out what he calls “government waste.” He’s taking his chainsaw to agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), but if he was truly interested in cutting government waste, there’s one obvious place: the Pentagon.
A September 2024 report from the independent, non-partisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) revealed that the Department of Defense is the only major federal agency that has never passed a “clean audit;” and of the 29 agencies under the Pentagon umbrella several have never passed an audit.1
Despite years of financial mismanagement, House Republican leaders want to add at least $150 billion more to the Pentagon in the current budget fight―on top of the approximately $850 billion already allocated to the Pentagon for fiscal year 2025.2
Enough is enough. Instead of major cuts to critical human needs programs and departments like the EPA, Congress must cut Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security funding.
Send a direct message to Congress urging them to reject more money to the Pentagon and DHS and invest in communities instead.
SEND A LETTER
By now, we’ve all read the reports of how federal contractors are price gouging the Pentagon, in some cases by up to 40%.3 In fact, so-called defense corporations like Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Northrum Grumman get roughly half of the nearly $900 billion Pentagon budget every year.4
In fact, Pentagon contracts alone cost more than the salary of every single federal worker combined.5 The United States alone accounts for 40% of global military spending and spends more than the next 9 countries combined.6
This spending is more than any other country in the world, yet we repeatedly fail to spend the required amount of funds that meet the most basic needs of food, housing, health care, and education that our communities need.
Trillions of dollars spent―and unaccounted for―undermines our security by preventing us from investing in the shared prosperity that comes from more housing, climate and public health protections, ending hunger, improving access to care, and education. And dollar-for-dollar, Pentagon spending has been shown to create fewer jobs than jobs created in comparable sectors, including education, health care, renewable energy, or infrastructure.7
Send a message to Congress urging them to invest in our communities, not wasteful Pentagon spending.
Thank you for all you do,
Deborah Weinstein
Executive Director, CHN Action
1 FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT: DOD Has Identified Benefits of Financial Statement Audits and Could Expand Its Monitoring
2 Republicans Advance Massive Defense Budget Boost as Pentagon Eyes 'Offsets'
3 Weapons contractors hitting Department of Defense with inflated prices for planes, submarines, missiles
4 Corporate Power, Profiteering, and the “Camo Economy”
5 Leave Federal Workers Alone. Cut Pentagon Contracts Instead.
6 The United States Spends More on Defense than the Next 9 Countries Combined
7 Pentagon Spending is the Least Effective Way to Create Jobs after COVID-19
