The Pentagon and its contractors do not want a one-year cash infusion, but a stable budgeting process that meets their needs—something Congress appears unable to give them.
There is a growing consensus in Washington that the United States needs to spend more on defense. A global power in today’s world requires it: Ukraine remains at war, the Indo-Pacific is tense, and now a shooting war with Iran is consuming munitions, platforms, and attention. Against that backdrop, the Trump administration’s call for a $1.5 trillion defense budget sounds not only justified, but overdue.
But there is a problem. The math and politics behind the new budget proposal may not work.
First, the $1.5 trillion did not consider a war with Iran. Second, the only way to reach $1.5 trillion is likely through budget reconciliation. For both of these reasons, the current process makes the entire enterprise fragile, temporary, and potentially illusory.
The $1.5 Trillion Illusion
Start with the baseline. In 2026, the United States will spend roughly $860 billion in baseline and $150 billion in reconciliation on defense—just over $1 trillion in total. To bridge the gap to $1.5 trillion, there would need to be another $500 billion added to the defense budget. That seems straightforward; in practice, it is anything but.
The first complicating factor is the growing cost of the Iran war. The Pentagon is reportedly considering asking OMB for $200 billion to sustain operations and replenish munitions. Wars consume inventories faster than peacetime planning assumes. Precision munitions, interceptors, and air defense systems are being used at rates that stress an already insufficient industrial base. Even if some of the supplemental requirements were planned as part of a 2027 industrial base fix, that backlog is now bigger.
This is where regular order collapses. There is no plausible path to 60 votes in the Senate for a $1.5 trillion defense budget—never mind one that is higher. Not in today’s political environment, not with current deficit pressures in the House, and certainly not on top of an active war that is already dividing Congress. Political gridlock led to the longest full government shutdown in history to start the fiscal year. The two chambers still can’t agree on funds for homeland security, a comparatively far smaller sum.
Time is not on anyone’s side. It is already April. The appropriations calendar is slipping, as it always does, and President Donald Trump has yet to submit his full budget to the Congress. The likelihood of a clean, on-time defense bill this year is zero. The likelihood of a continuing resolution is 100 percent—even assuming no shutdown in September, which is also a distinct possibility. If party control in the House changes in the midterms, as many expect, the window for any large defense increase slams shut entirely. Regular order is no longer “failing”; it is functionally unachievable.
Reconciliation Funding Has Too Narrow a Timeframe
That leaves “reconciliation,” a procedure reserved for certain budget legislation that can pass with a simple majority. It allows Congress to move large sums of money quickly. And in the current environment, it is the only viable legislative vehicle to reach anything close to $1.5 trillion. But it comes with tradeoffs that are strategic as well as technical.
The most obvious drawback to reconciliation funding is that it is episodic by design. It is not tied to the disciplined, program-by-program review that defines the appropriations process; it merely provides a surge of resources without guaranteeing their sustainment. In other words, it can create a $1.5 trillion moment, but not the needed stable baseline in order to sustain it.
That distinction matters enormously for the Pentagon. The military, and the industrial base that support it, have never made their plans in one-year increments. Shipbuilding, force structure, and munitions production are multi-year, often decades-long investments. A single one-time funding package to fix longstanding shortfalls and catch up are important and useful, but they must be carefully targeted and strategically sustained. Even proponents of increased defense spending should be wary of building a long-term strategy only on a short-term mechanism.
Congress Can Get to $1.5 Trillion—with Three Steps
Put it all together, and the situation becomes clear. To reach $1.5+ trillion, Congress must:
- Approve an annual defense topline that starts at $1.1 trillion in 2027.
- Add an additional $450 billion in flexible catch-up funds through reconciliation.
- Do both quickly, before the legislative calendar and political control shifts.
If Congress fails to do any of the three, the dollar figure will collapse.
This is not a trivial ask. But the strategic environment demands it. The industrial base needs it. The military can absorb it if it is structured correctly. The baseline must be sufficient and stable. The additional mandatory funding must be clearly appropriated and aligned to long-term gaps that don’t all require annual sustainment.
Defense firms have seen promised fixes before: large, off-budget or emergency-driven increases that create the appearance of transformation, only to fade away when the funding mechanism disappears. In the end, the question is not whether Congress can assemble $1.5+ trillion, but whether it can sustain the force that number implies. Right now, turning the potential mirage into a real strategy takes courageous, clear, prioritized and focus action.
About the Authors: John Ferrari and Elaine McCusker
Maj. Gen. John G. Ferrari is a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Over his 32-year US Army career, Ferrari, who is now retired, served as the director of program analysis and evaluation, the commanding general of the White Sands Missile Range, and a deputy commander for programs at the NATO Training Mission in Afghanistan. He has an MBA in finance and strategic management from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, an MA in national resource strategy and policy from the Industrial College of the Armed Forces (now called the Eisenhower School for National Security and Resource Strategy), and a BS in computer science from the United States Military Academy at West Point.
Elaine McCusker is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and previously served as the Pentagon’s acting undersecretary of defense (comptroller). Her writing on the military’s commissary system has appeared in The National Interest, The Military Times, and The Ripon Forum.
