The United States spends more on defense than the next nine countries combined and cannot pass a basic financial audit. We cut contractor bloat, retire failed programs, and reinvest in what the military actually needs — munitions, submarines, drones, and cyber. This is the most pro-military position possible.
The United States spends more on defense than the next nine countries combined — nearly $1 trillion per year — yet the Pentagon has failed its financial audit eight consecutive years and cannot account for $4.65 trillion in assets. The Common Good Party demands fundamental reform: a 15–20% targeted restructuring that eliminates waste, failed programs, and contractor bloat while reinvesting in the capabilities the military actually needs.
This is not anti-military. This is the most pro-military position possible. A military that runs out of cruise missiles in a month of real combat, that pays contractors billions for aircraft that fly half the time, and that spends $93 billion in September because the money will expire — that is not a strong military. Accountability and efficiency make the military stronger.
Veterans are sacred and untouchable. Every dollar not reinvested in military capability goes to VA healthcare and veteran suicide prevention. Full PACT Act funding with no caps.
American defense spending is characterized by three structural failures: an inability to account for where the money goes, a procurement system captured by contractor interests, and a political system that protects programs based on jobs rather than military necessity.
Sources: SIPRI Military Expenditure 2024 · POGO — Pentagon Audit Fact Sheet · Quincy Institute — Profits of War · OpenTheBooks — September Spending · Defense News — F-35 Readiness
The military-industrial complex Eisenhower warned about has become a self-reinforcing system. Contractors lobby for programs the Pentagon does not want, Congress funds them because the jobs are in their district, and no one can tell taxpayers where the money went because the Pentagon literally cannot pass a basic financial audit.
The Pentagon cannot account for its own money. The GAO has listed DoD financial management as "high risk" since 1995. In 2018, the Department of Defense conducted its first-ever agency-wide financial audit — and failed. It has now failed seven consecutive annual audits (2018–2024). The DoD Office of Inspector General has identified $4.65 trillion in assets that cannot be properly accounted for. No other federal agency has ever failed a single audit at this scale. The Pentagon fails one every year — and faces no consequences.
The revolving door drives the system. The defense sector has employed 2,700+ revolving door lobbyists since 2001. POGO documented 645 instances in a single year of top defense contractors hiring former senior government officials, military officers, or members of Congress — nearly 90% became registered lobbyists. Pentagon officials approve contracts, retire, take jobs at the contractor, and lobby their former colleagues for more contracts.
The procurement system produces absurdity at scale. Boeing charged a 7,943% markup on C-17 soap dispensers. The Air Force paid $7,622 for a coffee maker (2018, documented by Sen. Grassley). TransDigm, a sole-source parts supplier, was found by the DoD Inspector General (2019) to charge markups averaging 3,800% on spare parts. The F-35 program costs $2.1 trillion over its lifetime — 93% over original per-aircraft estimates — yet flies only 50% of the time. The Littoral Combat Ship, dubbed "the Little Crappy Ship" by the Navy itself, wasted $700 million on a mine-hunting subsystem that never worked, yet Congress blocked its retirement to save 1,850 jobs.
The political incentive is explicit. Lockheed Martin builds the F-35 across 45 states, making it politically impossible to cancel regardless of performance. Senators who voted against a 10% spending cut in 2023 received an average of $237,873 from defense contractors — nearly three times the $82,585 received by those who voted for it.
Sources: OpenSecrets — Defense Revolving Door · POGO — Brass Parachutes · CBS News — Soap Dispenser Markups · GAO — DoD Financial Management High Risk · DoD OIG — Financial Audit · Sen. Grassley — Coffee Maker Waste · DoD OIG — TransDigm Markups
Global military spending reached $2,718 billion in 2024, with the United States accounting for 37% of the total. No other democratic nation operates with the level of financial opacity or contractor dependency that characterizes the American system.
| Country | 2024 Spending | % of GDP | % of World Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| United States | $997B | 3.4% | 37% |
| China (est.) | $314B | 1.7% | 12% |
| Russia (est.) | $149B | 7.1% | 5.5% |
| Germany | $88.5B | 1.9% | 3.3% |
| India | $86.1B | 2.3% | 3.2% |
| United Kingdom | $81.8B | 2.3% | 3.0% |
| Next 9 combined | ~$984B | — | ~36% |
2025: All 32 NATO members met the 2% GDP target for the first time. European NATO plus Canada reached $574 billion — up 20% in real terms. Poland leads at 4.2%. Germany finally reached 2%. The lesson: allies are now pulling their weight, creating the conditions for responsible US restructuring without weakening collective defense.
The hollow force warning. Europe's post-Cold War defense cuts are a cautionary tale: the Netherlands sold all its tanks, Germany went from 7,000 tanks to roughly 200, Denmark had no heavy artillery. Russia's 2022 invasion exposed how unprepared these cuts left the continent. Our approach is targeted restructuring — not across-the-board sequestration that creates hollow forces.
Sources: SIPRI 2024 Data · Defense News — NATO 2% Target
The Common Good Party restructures defense spending through five integrated components: the audit requirement, targeted 15–20% cuts, reinvestment in actual capability, the BE SMART community transition program, and contractor reform.
The Audit Requirement
No budget increase before a clean audit. No exceptions. If the Pentagon fails its 2028 audit deadline, its budget is frozen at the prior year's level (inflation-adjusted only) until it passes. No supplementals. No reconciliation workarounds. The Sanders-Grassley penalty applies: any Pentagon component that fails its individual audit returns 1% of its budget to the Treasury.
Temporary Defense Audit Authority (TDAA): Independent office outside the Pentagon chain of command. Subpoena power. 4-year mandate. Staffed by forensic accountants, not Pentagon insiders. Subject to Universal Mandatory Duty to Act.
Permanent Internal Audit System: Modeled on the Marines' successful approach, scaled with modern technology and AI-assisted auditing as mandated by the FY2024 NDAA. Subject to Universal Mandatory Duty to Act.
Budget Freeze on Failure: Miss the 2028 deadline: budget frozen at prior year's inflation-adjusted level. No supplementals. No workarounds. The freeze lifts only when the audit is passed.
Public Transparency: The Pentagon pays $178M per year for a failing audit. Results published publicly with plain-language summaries. Every dollar of that $178M appears in the report.
The 15–20% Restructuring
New BRAC round: $12–20B savings — close 22% excess domestic capacity; consolidate Cold War overseas bases.
Contractor reform: $15–25B savings — competitive bidding; end sole-source; cap markups; bring high-cost jobs in-house.
Legacy program retirement: $10–20B savings — retire programs Pentagon requested to end (LCS, A-10, excess Abrams).
Sentinel ICBM restructure: $4–6B/yr savings — extend Minuteman III; evaluate sea-based deterrence sufficiency.
Carrier force optimization: $4–8B savings — reduce from 11 to 9 carriers over 15 years; reinvest in submarines.
"Use it or lose it" reform: $10–15B savings — allow 5% carryover; end $93.4B September spending sprees.
Overhead / HQ reduction: $8–12B savings — reduce civilian workforce grown 100,000+ since 2001; consolidate HQ.
Procurement reform: $5–10B savings — commercial purchasing standards; end cost-plus contracts.
F-35 accountability: $3–5B savings — withhold fees for late/underperforming deliveries; reduce buy quantities.
Total restructuring: $81–161B — approximately 9–18% of total DoD budget.
Where Savings Go
Munitions Surge: Rebuild depleted Tomahawk, SM-6, THAAD, and Patriot inventories. 850+ Tomahawks were fired in one month of real combat versus 34 produced in all of 2024. That gap is unacceptable.
Submarine Industrial Base: Workforce training and shipyard modernization to reach 2.0 Virginia-class per year. Current rate: 1.13/year. The Indo-Pacific deterrence strategy depends on submarines, not carriers.
Mass Drone Production: Scale the Replicator program from $1B/year to $10B+/year. Adopt Ukraine's rapid-iteration model — cheap, disposable, effective. The future of warfare is distributed and unmanned.
Indo-Pacific Infrastructure: Build out EDCA bases in the Philippines. Clear Taiwan's $21.5 billion arms backlog. The deterrence gap in the Pacific is a direct result of delivery failures, not insufficient budgets.
Cyber & Space: Offensive cyber capabilities and resilient satellite architecture. Restore domestic supply chains — TNT production, rare earth processing. The next war's terrain is digital and orbital.
Veterans — Every Remaining Dollar: Every dollar not reinvested in military capability goes to VA healthcare and the veteran suicide crisis. Non-negotiable. Veterans are the obligation that precedes all others.
BE SMART — Community Transition Program
Base Economies Strategic Modernization and Retraining Transition — removes Congress's incentive to protect failed programs by guaranteeing that communities losing legacy defense jobs are first in line for replacement investment. No community is abandoned. The jobs change — from building ships that don't sail to building drones that work.
Objective criteria for phase-out: Pentagon requested retirement, 15%+ over budget, mission fulfilled, or availability below 60%.
Priority Investment Designation: New defense manufacturing, clean energy, federal research facilities, infrastructure.
110% replacement funding: Communities receive more during transition than they got from the old program for three years.
Wage insurance: 80% of previous salary for up to two years during retraining.
Hiring preferences: New defense programs in BE SMART communities hire locally first.
Map affected communities before any retirement announcement — transition plan comes first.
Contractor Reform
5-year revolving door cooling-off period for senior DoD officials and general/flag officers (currently 2 years). 10-year lobbying ban for former members of Congress on defense matters. Full public disclosure of all post-government defense industry employment. Performance-based contracting — no incentive payments for late or underperforming deliveries. Competitive bidding mandate. Markup caps: no more 7,943% soap dispenser pricing.
Veterans — Untouchable
Full PACT Act funding with no caps — covering toxic exposure from burn pits, Agent Orange, and radiation. Target zero veteran suicides through universal access, same-day mental health appointments, and community outreach to the 61% not currently reaching VA care. Continue veteran homelessness reduction toward functional zero — down to 32,882 from 76,000 in 2010. Under single-payer (Issue 1), veterans gain seamless access to the entire healthcare system, eliminating facility-based wait time barriers entirely.
Diplomacy Restoration
Restore USAID as an independent agency and rebuild foreign aid to pre-2025 levels after 57% cuts. Rebalance the 32:1 defense-to-diplomacy ratio — preventive diplomacy is orders of magnitude cheaper than military intervention. The $8+ trillion cost of post-9/11 wars is what happens when you choose military action over diplomatic solutions.
Sources: CAGW — BRAC Excess Capacity · GovExec — Contractor vs. Federal Costs · National Security Journal — Virginia-Class · Cato — Taiwan Arms Backlog · POGO — Brass Parachutes · VA — Homelessness Data · Al Jazeera — USAID Cuts · Brown University — Costs of War
This is not a budget cut — it is a restructuring. Eliminating waste generates savings that fund both genuine military capability and domestic needs. Net savings flow to VA healthcare, veteran suicide prevention, diplomacy restoration, and deficit reduction.
| Component | Fiscal Impact | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| BRAC + base closures | $12–20B savings | Close excess domestic and Cold War overseas facilities. |
| Contractor reform | $15–25B savings | Competitive bidding, markup caps, bringing work in-house. |
| Legacy program retirement | $10–20B savings | BE SMART ensures communities get replacement investment. |
| Procurement + overhead | $13–22B savings | Commercial standards, cost-plus reform, HQ consolidation. |
| Reinvestment in capability | $40–60B cost | Munitions, submarines, drones, cyber, Indo-Pacific bases. |
| Net annual savings | $20–100B | Funds VA, deficit reduction, and diplomacy restoration. |
The accountability framework below summarizes how every element of the current system is reformed:
| Principle | Current System | Our Reform |
|---|---|---|
| Financial accountability | 8 failed audits, $4.65T unverifiable | TDAA, budget freeze on failure, public reporting |
| Contractor oversight | 2-year revolving door, sole-source contracts | 5-year cooling off, competitive bidding, markup caps |
| Legacy programs | Kept for jobs, not military capability | BE SMART: retire programs, replace jobs |
| Investment priority | Carriers, F-35, Sentinel ICBM | Munitions, submarines, drones, cyber |
| Veterans | 44-day wait for primary care | Full PACT funding, zero suicides target, seamless access |
"The United States spends more on defense than the next nine countries combined. It cannot pass a basic financial audit. It sends 54% of its budget to private contractors who collect billions for aircraft that fly half the time. We cut waste, invest in capability, protect every veteran, and demand accountability. This is not anti-military — this is being responsible with taxpayer money."— The Common Good Party