Defense Spending
The United States spends more on its military than the next ten countries combined, yet the Pentagon has never passed a full independent audit. Trillions of taxpayer dollars flow to defense contractors through a system of lobbying, revolving door hiring, and bipartisan political consensus that makes military budgets nearly immune to meaningful scrutiny.
Gen Us covers defense spending because it represents the single largest category of discretionary federal spending, yet receives less critical coverage per dollar than almost any other government expenditure. The military-industrial complex that Eisenhower warned about is not a conspiracy theory — it is a documented system of financial incentives.
We trace contractor profits to specific weapons programs, document the revolving door between the Pentagon and defense industry, and analyze how media coverage of defense spending is shaped by the same corporate ownership structures that profit from military contracts.
Key Questions We're Asking
- •Why has the Pentagon failed every audit since Congress mandated them in 2018?
- •Which defense contractors receive the most taxpayer money, and what is their return on lobbying investment?
- •How does the revolving door between the Pentagon, Congress, and defense companies influence procurement decisions?
- •What is the true cost of major weapons programs (F-35, Sentinel ICBM) compared to initial estimates?
- •How do defense dollars flow to Congressional districts, and does this influence voting on military budgets?
What Mainstream Media Misses
- •The Pentagon's audit failures are reported as individual stories but never as a systemic accountability crisis.
- •Defense contractor profits and executive compensation are almost never compared against military readiness outcomes.
- •Cost overruns on major weapons programs (often 50-100% above initial estimates) are treated as inevitable rather than as evidence of procurement failure.
- •The opportunity cost of defense spending — what the same money could fund in healthcare, education, or infrastructure — is almost never contextualized.
Follow the Money
- •The U.S. defense budget exceeds $850 billion annually, with approximately half going to contractors.
- •The top five defense contractors (Lockheed Martin, RTX, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, General Dynamics) receive over $150 billion annually in government contracts.
- •The defense industry spends over $100 million annually on lobbying and employs over 700 registered lobbyists.
- •Thousands of former military officers and Pentagon officials work for defense contractors — the single largest revolving door in government.