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Last week, President Donald Trump declared that the federal government cannot afford to spend “any money for day care” because “we’re fighting wars.” According to Trump, the well-being of America’s children is not a concern of the administration. “We have to take care of one thing: military protection,” Trump declared. “We have to guard the country.”
These comments were made at a luncheon that Trump thought was private but was inadvertently live-streamed on YouTube.
A few days later, as the Iran War raged, Trump submitted an eye-popping $1.5 trillion defense budget for the 2027 fiscal year. This figure alone represents a 44% increase over 2026 funding.
The request does not account for the war in Iran, which, according to a detailed calculation by Stephen Semler, is costing $2.1 billion per day. The Trump administration says it will request another $200 billion in supplemental defense funding to finance the war in Iran and other programs.
The combined $1.7 trillion is double the funding baseline before Trump’s second term of about $850 billion, according to an analysis by Taxpayers for Common Sense.
This funding level, if maintained, would dramatically expand federal spending. The Committee for a Responsible Budget found that the increased military spending proposed for 2027 would cost an additional $3.2 trillion over ten years. In 2024, only two other countries spent more than $100 billion annually on defense — China ($317 billion) and Russia ($149 billion).
A comprehensive federal subsidy for childcare and universal preschool would cost about $65 billion per year.
Notably, the “Department of War” cannot account for the money it is currently allocated. Congress has mandated an annual audit of defense spending since 2018, and the Pentagon has failed every single one. Hundreds of billions of dollars in spending and more than $1 trillion in assets are not accounted for appropriately.
Thus far, the White House has released few details about exactly how the Pentagon will spend this money. But we do know this: many billions of dollars will be directed to Trump’s political allies to pay for unproven technology that some experts believe will never work.
The Pentagon’s golden egg
While there is no money for childcare, Trump’s defense budget allocates at least $17.5 billion to the “Golden Dome” — a space-based missile defense system. This is in addition to $25 billion that was earmarked for the project last year.
When the Golden Dome was first announced by Trump in May 2025, he claimed the project would cost $175 billion and be operational before the end of his term. Already, the price tag has increased to $185 billion, and the Pentagon says it will not be operational until at least 2035. Both of those estimates are likely much too optimistic.
In September 2025, Todd Harrison of the American Enterprise Institute estimated that a system actually capable of neutralizing threats from all countries would cost $3.6 trillion. Among other limitations, a $185 billion system would not be effective against threats from China or Russia, which have thousands of missiles, Harrison argues. Bloomberg’s independent analysis found that an effective system would cost about $1.1 trillion. Senator Tim Sheehy (R-MT), a Trump supporter and the founder of the Golden Dome caucus, acknowledged that “[i]t will likely cost in the trillions if and when Golden Dome is completed.”
Some scientists believe that, no matter how much is spent, a space-based missile defense system will not be effective. A February 2025 paper by the American Physical Society (APS) found that to defend against just one North Korean missile would require “a constellation of at least 1600 interceptors.” To defend against 10 missiles fired simultaneously, the United States would need 40,000 space-based interceptors, about three times the number of active satellites currently in orbit.
Even if a mutli-trillion-dollar system with tens of thousands of interceptors could be deployed, it could still be defeated with relatively inexpensive countermeasures, like decoys. The White House seems to acknowledge that the missile defense system it is building will not actually defend the country against a missile attack. “The goal is to not create a ‘perfect’ defense, but to provide an increasingly effective shield,” the White House budget document states.
While the efficacy of the Golden Dome is uncertain at best, the project will undoubtedly be a windfall for key Trump political allies.
Elon Musk spent over $250 million supporting Trump in the 2024 election. His company SpaceX is expected to receive “$2 billion to develop satellites that can track missiles and aircraft“ for the Golden Dome. This is likely the first of many payments to SpaceX to build and deploy hundreds — or even thousands — of satellites that the Golden Dome requires. SpaceX is slated to go public later this year and much of its valuation is tied to its $22 billion in federal government contracts.
Palantir, founded by Trump-supporting billionaire Peter Thiel, is expected to develop software to run the Golden Dome, according to a Wall Street Journal report on March 24. Vice President J.D. Vance worked for Thiel, who donated $15 million to Vance’s Senate campaign. The software is the Golden Dome’s “glue layer” that will “connect the radars and other sensors that detect and track airborne threats.”
According to the report, Palantir is partnering with Anduril, a software company founded by Palmer Luckey. Luckey donated over $1.1 million combined to Trump’s presidential campaigns in 2020 and 2024, according to FEC data. In 2020, Luckey hosted a fundraiser for Trump at his Newport Beach home, with tickets priced up to $150,000, and co-hosted another high-dollar fundraiser in 2024. Anduril has already received a small $10 million contract related to the Golden Dome, according to a November 2025 Reuters report.
Blue Origin, founded by Jeff Bezos, is also expected to compete for Golden Dome satellite work. Bezos has prioritized improving relations with Trump, turning the Washington Post editorial board into a conservative mouthpiece. The effort appears to be working. Trump praised Bezos as a “good guy“ who is trying to be “more fair” at the Washington Post.
$350 billion with little oversight
Of the $1.5 trillion in military spending Trump is requesting, $350 billion is set to come through the budget reconciliation process, instead of the typical appropriations process. This $350 billion will include nearly all of the funding for the Golden Dome, meaning there will be little Congressional oversight of the project.
Funding the military is complex, and typically, lawmakers on either side of the aisle spend months speaking with military leadership and hammering out the details. The National Defense Authorization Act, which Congress has passed every year since 1962, takes twenty subcommittees around nine months to craft, and it is typically hundreds of pages long. It also requires a degree of bipartisan support because it is subject to the filibuster and thus requires 60 votes to pass the Senate.
Of the total defense budget that Trump has proposed, $1.15 trillion will be subject to this lengthy, bipartisan process, and the money will be obligated to specific programs laid out in the appropriations bill.
The rest will go through the much faster process of budget reconciliation, which allows Congress to quickly pass legislation that adjusts government spending and taxes. Because budget reconciliation theoretically does not introduce any policy changes, but only adjusts how the government spends on its existing policies, reconciliation bills are not subject to the filibuster. This means Senate Democrats will have little say over this portion of Trump’s defense budget, unless they can successfully argue that it does include policy changes.
Last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) is already proving what can go wrong when a portion of the defense budget comes from budget reconciliation. OBBBA included over $150 billion in defense funding. Because budget reconciliation moves through the legislative process much faster, OBBBA only included broad guidelines for how Congress wanted to DOD to spend the money, but did not explicitly tie all of the funds to specific programs.
Republican senators tried to get assurances from Hegseth and other DOD officials that the department would stick to Congressional intent for spending the $150 billion, but the Trump administration has already proven that it is willing to break these promises.
In December, Trump announced that he was sending out $1,776 “warrior dividend” checks to over one million service members. To pay these dividends, the Trump administration pulled nearly $2.6 billion out of a $2.9 billion allocation under OBBBA that was meant to subsidize housing allowances for military families.
Additionally, it was unclear for several months how DOD planned to spend a large portion of its reconciliation funding. Initially, DOD only shared a classified plan for how it would spend $90 billion of the funds with certain Congressional committees. The other $60 billion was unaccounted for until late February, when DOD declassified its spending plan. While some of the details are still classified, it is now clear that DOD plans to spend all $150 billion during fiscal year 2026, even though some of the funds were to be spent over a period of five years.
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