Late last month, leaks finally revealed the Pentagon’s spending plan for around $152 billion set aside for the agency in the budget reconciliation bill enacted last summer. The big news: The Pentagon plans to spend the entire amount in fiscal 2026. But beneath this headline, differences between the spending plan, congressional guidance, and the Pentagon’s budget request belie the inherent oversight problems associated with budgeting for the Pentagon through reconciliation.
Despite President Donald Trump saying that “we don’t need it [another reconciliation bill] because we got everything in it,” some Republicans lawmakers are still pushing for round two. Rather than repeating this budgetary malpractice, lawmakers should stick to budgeting for the Pentagon through regular appropriations.
The reconciliation spending plan comes more than seven months after the spending was enacted, and only after pressure from lawmakers to release the details. The Pentagon had previously only sent Congress plans for $90 billion, and those plans were classified until last week, when a version was downgraded to controlled unclassified information (CUI).
The plan to spend all of the money in FY26 diverges significantly from the plan articulated last year by the Trump administration. In its budget request, the administration sought $848.3 billion in discretionary spending, and an additional $113.3 billion in mandatory spending through reconciliation, all for FY26. The spending plan, however, indicates plans to spend $151.5 billion from reconciliation in FY26 — an additional $38.2 billion.
Last July, weeks after the One Big Beautiful Bill Act was enacted, the chairs of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees sent funding tables to the Pentagon outlining congressional intent for the Pentagon appropriations included in the bill, along with a letter requesting more detailed spending plans “not later than August 22, 2025.” In other words, the full spending plan was more than six months late.
While traditional funding tables that accompany the Defense Appropriations Act detail funding at the program and project level, the funding tables for reconciliation were decidedly vague. And while funds for the Pentagon in the bill were made available through FY29, many of the line items did not list a specific fiscal year. Others listed multiple years. Many of them also fail to list which programs, which accounts, or even which military services should receive the funding. The spending plan includes a little more detail than the congressional funding tables but still fails to address spending at the program level, as spending plans for traditional appropriations bills would.
Despite the lack of detail in the congressional funding tables and the Pentagon’s spending plan, a quick glance at both shows that the department did not perfectly adhere to congressional guidance.
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Just as a simple, single example, the portion of the Pentagon’s spending plan focused on servicemember quality of life excludes $6 million included in the congressional funding tables “for Armed Forces Retirement Home facilities.” While $6 million is a small portion of the total amount, its small size may have allowed it to go unnoticed, as total amounts listed in the spending plan’s summaries are rounded to the nearest hundred million.
Whether the omission was a deliberate cut or just an oversight, it underscores one of the problems with budgeting for the Pentagon through a reconciliation slush fund — oversight comes late, if at all, and important details fall through the cracks.
Last year, Senate Armed Services Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., repeatedly grilled Pentagon nominees about whether they would follow congressional guidance on how to spend reconciliation funds. The Pentagon failed to follow that guidance on multiple counts — delivering spending plans six months late and diverging from congressional guidance on precisely how to spend the funds.
While Congress was vague about when the money should be spent, that the spending plan increases what the Pentagon told lawmakers it would use is of particular concern —lawmakers had every reason to assume that the Pentagon would spend reconciliation dollars in a way that aligned with its budget request. Now, more than five months into the fiscal year, and after adding $8.4 billion on top of the Pentagon’s request for discretionary spending, they’re discovering that the Pentagon plans to spend $38 billion more than it sought through reconciliation this year.
Considering the president’s proposal for a $1.5 trillion Pentagon budget in FY27, the decision to spend the entire reconciliation fund in FY26 could be more about optics than genuine need — it’s harder to ask for more money when you haven’t used all of the money you already have.
The gap between what was requested and what the Pentagon now plans to spend, the plan’s divergence from congressional guidance, and the plan’s lack of detail relative to spending plans for regular appropriations exemplify some of the problems with budgeting for the Pentagon through one-off cash infusions that aren’t subject to standard congressional oversight. But the problems don’t end there.
Reconciliation was designed as a tool to balance the budget, but both parties have abused the process to pass major spending initiatives outside of the normal budget process without the hassle of compromise that the normal budget process ensures. Normal appropriations bills generally require 60 votes to pass the Senate. But by budgeting for the Pentagon through reconciliation, Republicans can secure their priorities with a simple majority in both chambers. The problem is those priorities won’t likely get the same attention if either chamber of Congress flips. In other words, budgeting for the Pentagon like this can lead to a tug-of-war over priorities rather than a steady stream of funding for programs that most lawmakers can agree on.
As lawmakers prepare to consider the president’s anticipated request for $1.5 trillion in FY27, handing the Pentagon another partisan slush fund through reconciliation should be off the table. Of course, on the heels of an 18 percent increase this year (accounting for the Pentagon’s plan to spend all of the reconciliation funds in FY26), Congress should reject any increase out of hand and pursue cuts instead. But that’s a topic for another piece.
Gabe Murphy is a policy analyst at Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan budget watchdog that advocates for transparency and calls out wasteful spending.