For decades, I served this nation in uniform, rising through the ranks to witness firsthand the extraordinary capabilities, and the often-maddening inefficiencies, of our military-industrial complex. I saw the courage and ingenuity of our troops, but I also saw waste on a scale that defies comprehension, nowhere more glaringly than in the Defense Department’s budgeting process. That is why I am so encouraged that, as of Feb. 20, the Pentagon has begun working with the Department of Government Efficiency to root out waste and demand accountability for the taxpayer.
The Pentagon’s budget is massive: $886 billion for fiscal 2025, more than the gross domestic product of most nations. Yet, despite this staggering sum, it remains the only primary federal agency that has never passed a clean financial audit.
Since the 1990s, when Congress first mandated such oversight, the Defense Department has stumbled through excuses, partial audits, and promises of reform. Last year’s audit, its seventh failure, identified $3.8 trillion in assets and liabilities it couldn’t fully account for. That’s not a rounding error — it’s a systemic failure.
As a former insider, I can attest that this isn’t about malice or incompetence — it’s about a bureaucracy so sprawling and entrenched that it resists scrutiny by design.
Enter DOGE, the brainchild of reformers determined to slash inefficiency across government. Led by outsiders unrestricted by Washington’s sacred cows, DOGE has been given a mandate by President Donald Trump to ask hard questions and demand real answers. Many believed that as a Republican, Trump would look the other way when it came to Pentagon inefficiencies, but that does not appear to be the case.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth invited DOGE officials in through the front door and pledged to work with them to eliminate the “BS.” For a Washington used to turf wars and a desire to protect and expand every penny budgeted by Congress, this is as shocking as it is welcoming. An independent, no-nonsense audit could cut through decades of red tape and expose where taxpayer dollars vanish — whether into outdated systems, bloated payrolls, or programs that overpromise and underdeliver.
As the CEO of SpaceX, which often contracts with the Defense Department, Elon Musk is well aware of how much wasteful defense spending there is on the books. In October 2024, for example, he posted on X that “SpaceX was forced by the government to kidnap seals, put earphones on them and play sonic boom sounds to see if they seemed upset.”
This was not an isolated occurrence, either. The U.S. Navy spends $40 million every year on bizarre marine animal experiments, which include but are not limited to blasting loud noises in their ears through headphones to assess their responses and teaching them how to play video games. Moreover, in December 2024, in his annual Festivus Report on government waste, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) highlighted how the DOD’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency spent nearly $11 million electroshocking cats and inserting marbles into their rectums to test a spinal cord injury treatment device. These expensive, wasteful tests continue despite the department admitting that “animal models have limited relevance to humans and poorly predict effects in humans.”
The U.S. faces some of its most serious defense threats in years, from China’s growing military aggression to Iran-backed terrorist attacks. Yet, puzzlingly, these inexplicable tests continue unabated. DOGE should change that soon.
However, even these Defense Department animal experiments pale in comparison to the F-35 boondoggle — the most expensive military program in history, which just about every defense analyst will tell DOGE is the height of government waste.
The F-35 was sold as a revolutionary “fifth-generation” fighter jet, a silver bullet to maintain air dominance for decades. Instead, it’s become a trillion-dollar albatross. Over two decades after it was conceived, the Government Accountability Office now reports the F-35’s lifetime cost has ballooned to $1.7 trillion, with each jet costing upwards of $100 million before maintenance. Worse, it’s plagued by delays, design flaws, and reliability issues — over 800 unresolved deficiencies by last count.
As adversaries such as China advance cheaper, more focused systems, the U.S. continues to pour billions into a jet that’s often grounded. It was only 55% mission-capable last year, far below its 80% target. Continuing to spend taxpayer dollars on this egregiously wasteful project might make sense for billion-dollar defense contractors that have a lot of money on the line, but it does not make sense for anyone else.
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Critics will cry that auditing the Pentagon risks weakening our defense. I say the opposite: unchecked waste weakens us. Every dollar lost to inefficiency is a dollar not spent on training, munitions, or the next breakthrough. Our troops deserve better than a bureaucracy that shrugs at accountability. And our citizens, whose taxes fund this enterprise, deserve transparency.
The military I served wasn’t built on blank checks — it was built on discipline and purpose. It’s time to restore that ethos. Let DOGE lead the charge. Our security and solvency depend on it.
Retired Col. Robert L. Maness, host of The Rob Maness Show, is a 32-year U.S. Air Force combat veteran and was a member of the Trump campaign’s Veterans and Military Families for Trump Coalition. Follow him on X @RobManess.
This article was originally published at www.washingtonexaminer.com
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