We got lots of responses – positive and negative – on our recent HOTLINE item on the absurdity of Republicans allocating an extra $200 billion to the Pentagon. This would bring the defense budget to roughly $1 trillion a year – more than the next five biggest countries spend combined.

One of our favorite blogs by Matt Ridley called the Rational Optimist, exposed some of the mind-blowing waste by our military industrial complex:

Today, just five companies capture over 80% of defense dollars: Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, Raytheon, and Northrop Grumman. Half of all defense contracts face zero competition. Zero competition means zero innovation.

One example: Lockheed’s F-35 fighter jet. It was conceived before the first iPhone and still isn’t fully operational yet. At $2 trillion in total lifecycle cost, it’s the most expensive weapons program in history. And it’s not an outlier. It now takes America 20+ years to develop a new military aircraft. China’s loving this. And I would argue drones have already made the F-35 obsolete.

Ridley also notes that DOD still uses 20th century “cost-plus pricing,” so the more Raytheon and Boeing waste, the more taxpayer money they get. Sheer idiocy.

We are absolutely certain that DOGE could easily find $200 billion in waste and fraud in the Pentagon budget, and that’s how we should pay for any new military needs.