President Donald Trump announced in February on social media he would ask Congress for a $1.5 trillion defense budget for Fiscal Year (FY) 2027–a massive $500 billion increase from this year’s Pentagon budget of $1 trillion!
The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), initially funded defense programs at roughly $850 billion for FY2026. However, this amount later increased to a trillion dollars due to $150 billion in additional funds via the “ reconciliation process” – marking the first time defense money was secured through the reconciliation procedure. Nearly $19 billion of those reconciliation funds went to nuclear modernization.
Reconciliation is a special Congressional procedure that fast-tracks legislation affecting taxes, spending, and the debt limit, allowing it to pass the Senate with a simple majority (51 votes) rather than the 60 votes required to break a filibuster. It is a two-phase process starting with a budget resolution, followed by committees drafting legislation to meet specific fiscal targets, in this case adding funds to defense programs.
For FY 2027, in order to reach Trump’s goal of $1.5 trillion, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R) is seeking to again add to what is authorized in the NDAA in the upcoming reconciliation bill. The plan? An additional $450 billion in reconciliation funds for defense, three times the $150 billion secured for defense in last year’s preliminary reconciliation effort! Apparently, this process is the new normal.
Rogers argues that the funding would be necessary to reach the target set by Trump and further stressed that a $1.5 trillion defense budget is necessary to be able to pay for major projects such as the Golden Dome missile shield, sixth-generation F-47 fighter jet, and Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) program. The recent February 5th expiration of New START, combined with this record budget and major projects, will supercharge a new nuclear arms race.
Year after year, we are seeing taxpayer burden for the defense budget increase, while crucial services that benefit communities, such as education, health care, and environmental remediation have experienced budget cuts. In 2023, the Pentagon spent far more than China, Russia, and Iran spent on defense combined.
Despite the avalanche of funding, nuclear weapons projects continue to be behind schedule and cost more than projected. The Sentinel ICBM, a project the Trump administration claims can’t be properly funded without the extra $500 billion increase to the budget, is notorious for its massive cost overruns. In 2024, the project triggered a “Nunn-McCurdy Act breach,” resulting in a full review and restructuring of the project. A Nunn-McCurdy breach occurs when a major U.S. defense acquisition program’s costs exceed established congressional thresholds, requiring mandatory reporting. The Sentinel ICBM was originally estimated to cost taxpayers $78 billion in 2020, however it is now estimated to cost $141 billion, even with restructuring–an 81% increase! 
Livermore Lab is the lead lab developing the new W87-1 warhead for the Sentinel ICBM and it continues to receive full funding despite significant delay and failure to even provide a credible cost estimate to Congress (which the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) blames on DOD’s delays to the Sentinel missile program.)
Due to Tri-Valley CAREs advocacy, Congress demanded that the Government Accountability Office do an investigation into the cost reporting process at NNSA, and it found major problems and offered numerous suggestions.
Instead of increasing the budget, Congress needs to be asking the hard questions about where the money is going, and what taxpayers are actually getting, while holding agencies such as the National Nuclear Security Administration and defense contractors accountable for cost overruns. Check out our blog on NNSA cost reporting for more information.
More money for these unnecessary and antiquated weapons of a long-bygone era of big nuclear missile fascination is a gross waste of taxpayer dollars. Now is the time for diplomacy and a return to arms control agreements, not the unprecedented expenditure of nuclear weapons.