The US spends more on defense than the next nine countries combined — yet the Pentagon cannot account for $4.65 trillion in assets. America doesn't need a bigger military. It needs a smarter one.
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The United States spent $886 billion on defense in 2024 — more than China, Russia, India, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Japan, and South Korea combined. When you include veterans' affairs, nuclear weapons, and intelligence, total national security spending exceeds $1.1 trillion per year. The question isn't whether America has a strong military. It's whether this level of spending makes us safer — or just makes defense contractors richer.
The roots of today's defense budget are in the Cold War. After World War II, the United States built a global military infrastructure designed to contain the Soviet Union — bases on every continent, carrier groups in every ocean, nuclear arsenals capable of destroying civilization several times over. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the rational response would have been to scale back. Instead, defense spending briefly dipped before surging to new highs after September 11, 2001 — and it never came back down.
The military-industrial complex — a term coined by President Eisenhower in his 1961 farewell address — is not a conspiracy theory. It is a documented economic reality. Five companies (Lockheed Martin, RTX, Boeing, General Dynamics, and Northrop Grumman) receive the majority of defense contracts. They employ lobbyists in every congressional district. They fund think tanks that advocate for higher defense budgets. And they hire retired generals and Pentagon officials through a revolving door that makes the people who approve weapons purchases the same people who profit from them.
Threat inflation plays a central role. Every generation has a new existential threat that justifies ever-larger budgets — the Soviet Union, then terrorism, now China. The threats are real, but the budgets are not proportional to them. China spends an estimated $296 billion on defense. Russia spends $109 billion. The United States spends more than both combined, by a factor of two. At what point does more spending stop making us safer and start representing waste?
Finally, there are congressional district incentives. Defense spending is distributed across virtually every congressional district in America by design. Closing a base or canceling a weapons system means job losses in a specific district — which means no member of Congress wants to vote for it, regardless of whether the base or system serves any strategic purpose. The F-35 program has suppliers in 45 states. That's not an engineering decision. It's a political one. For more on fiscal responsibility, see the budget and national debt page.
No. The Department of Defense has failed six consecutive audits since mandatory financial auditing began in 2018. It cannot account for $4.65 trillion in assets. No other federal agency is allowed to operate this way.
The Pentagon is the only federal agency that has never passed a comprehensive financial audit. Every year since 2018, independent auditors have examined the Department of Defense's books and concluded that they cannot verify where the money went. This doesn't necessarily mean the money was stolen — though fraud is certainly part of the picture. It means the Pentagon's financial systems are so outdated, fragmented, and poorly maintained that the department literally does not know what it owns, what it has spent, or where its assets are.
To put this in perspective: the IRS passes its audit. The Social Security Administration passes its audit. NASA passes its audit. Even the Department of Homeland Security — itself a sprawling, complex bureaucracy — has made significant progress toward clean audits. The Pentagon, which receives more discretionary funding than every other federal agency combined, cannot tell Congress or the American people how it spent the money.
The $4.65 trillion in unaccounted assets includes buildings, vehicles, weapons systems, inventory, and financial transactions that auditors could not trace. The Pentagon uses over 2,000 different financial systems, many of which cannot communicate with each other. Some military branches still track inventory on paper or in spreadsheets. The result is a system where billions of dollars in equipment simply disappear from the books every year.
What does the money actually go to? Roughly one-third goes to military personnel costs (pay, benefits, housing). Another third goes to operations and maintenance. The remaining third goes to procurement and research — where the most egregious waste occurs. Weapons systems routinely cost two to three times their original estimates. The F-35 program alone has exceeded its budget by over $183 billion. The full defense policy page details the Common Good plan for audit accountability.
The Common Good defense plan strengthens American security by cutting waste — not readiness. It demands accountability from the Pentagon, ends the corrupt contracting practices that enrich defense corporations at taxpayer expense, and invests in the capabilities that actually matter for 21st-century threats.
The plan is built on eight core provisions, each targeting a specific failure in how America currently manages its defense spending. Together, they create a military that is leaner, more capable, and more accountable to the American people.
For the complete plan with legislative detail, cost projections, and sourcing, see the full defense issue page.
The United States spends more on its military than the next nine countries combined. The scale of American defense spending is without precedent in human history — and the gap between the US and every other nation is growing, not shrinking.
| Country | Budget | % GDP | Personnel | Bases Abroad | Nuclear | Audit Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United States | $886B | 3.5% | 1.39M | 750+ | 5,500 | Failed 6x |
| China | $296B | 1.6% | 2.04M | 1 | 500 | N/A |
| Russia | $109B | 5.9% | 1.15M | ~20 | 6,257 | N/A |
| United Kingdom | $75B | 2.3% | 151K | 16 | 225 | Passed |
| France | $61B | 2.1% | 204K | 11 | 290 | Passed |
| Germany | $68B | 1.6% | 183K | 0 | 0 | Passed |
The numbers tell a clear story. The United States spends three times more than China, eight times more than Russia, and more than ten times more than any European ally. America maintains 750+ overseas bases while China has one and Russia has roughly twenty. Yet the United States is the only major military power that cannot pass a financial audit of its own spending.
The question is not whether America can afford a strong defense. It already has one. The question is whether spending three times more than the nearest competitor — with no financial accountability — represents good strategy or captured policy. For a detailed side-by-side comparison of party positions, see the Compare Parties page.
China and Russia are real strategic competitors. But the answer to real threats is smart defense — not an ever-expanding budget that enriches contractors while leaving core capabilities underfunded.
China is a genuine long-term strategic challenge. Its military modernization is real. Its ambitions in the South China Sea and toward Taiwan are serious. But China spends roughly one-third what the United States does on defense, has one overseas military base (in Djibouti), and has not fought a war since 1979. The most effective deterrent against Chinese aggression is not more aircraft carriers — it's a network of strong alliances in the Indo-Pacific (Japan, South Korea, Australia, the Philippines) combined with economic leverage and asymmetric capabilities like cyber defense and undersea warfare.
Russia is a declining power with an economy smaller than Italy's, propped up by nuclear weapons and the willingness to use force. The war in Ukraine has exposed the weaknesses of Russia's conventional military — poor logistics, outdated equipment, low morale, and staggering casualties. Russia remains dangerous primarily because of its nuclear arsenal and its willingness to use cyber warfare and disinformation. The correct response is not a bigger US defense budget. It's a stronger NATO — which means allies meeting their spending commitments — and robust cyber defense capabilities.
Smart defense vs. bigger budgets: the Common Good plan invests in the capabilities that actually deter modern threats — cyber, AI, space, special operations, intelligence, and alliance coordination — rather than throwing money at legacy platforms designed for conflicts that no longer exist. A single Virginia-class submarine costs $3.4 billion. The entire annual budget for CISA (the federal cybersecurity agency) is $2.9 billion. Which investment does more to protect Americans from the most likely threats they face today?
Alliances are force multipliers. NATO's combined defense spending exceeds $1.2 trillion. The US doesn't need to outspend the world alone — it needs allies that share the burden proportionally. The Common Good plan strengthens alliances rather than threatening to abandon them, because a dollar spent by an ally is a dollar America doesn't have to spend. For more on foreign policy, see the foreign policy page.
The defense industry spends hundreds of millions of dollars every year on lobbying and think-tank funding designed to make Americans afraid of the one reform that would actually make them safer: holding the Pentagon accountable. Here are the four most persistent myths — and what the evidence actually shows.
Myth: "Cutting defense spending weakens America."
Reality: The Common Good plan doesn't cut combat readiness — it cuts waste. The US could reduce defense spending by 15-20% and still outspend every other country on Earth by a wide margin. The question is not whether to have a strong military. It's whether $886 billion that can't even be audited is making us stronger — or just enriching contractors. A leaner, accountable military is a stronger military. Waste doesn't deter adversaries.
Myth: "The Pentagon is efficient with taxpayer money."
Reality: The Pentagon has failed six consecutive audits. It cannot account for $4.65 trillion in assets. The F-35 program is $183 billion over budget. Cost-plus contracts guarantee contractor profits regardless of performance. The Pentagon's own inspector general regularly identifies billions in waste, fraud, and abuse. No serious person looking at the evidence would call this system efficient. See the budget and national debt page for more on fiscal accountability.
Myth: "We need military bases everywhere to stay safe."
Reality: The United States maintains over 750 bases in 80+ countries — more than every other nation on Earth combined. Many date from World War II and serve no current strategic purpose. Germany alone hosts over 100 US military installations, seven decades after the war ended. A base-by-base strategic review would identify installations that can be closed without any reduction in security — freeing up billions for modernization and personnel. Not every base protects America. Some just protect their own budgets.
Myth: "Military spending creates more jobs than alternatives."
Reality: Studies by the University of Massachusetts and Brown University's Costs of War project have consistently found that $1 billion in defense spending creates fewer jobs than the same investment in education, healthcare, clean energy, or infrastructure. Military spending creates approximately 11,200 jobs per billion dollars. The same investment in education creates 26,700 jobs. In clean energy: 16,800 jobs. Defense spending is one of the least efficient forms of job creation — but it is one of the most effective forms of lobbying. For the Common Good approach to jobs and the economy, see the labor and workers' rights page.
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The Pentagon can't account for $4.65 trillion. Defense contractors write their own checks. America deserves a military that is strong, smart, and accountable. Read the full plan.