The U.S. defense budget is approaching $1 trillion. About half is going to defense contractors, who have a history of overcharging the Pentagon and fleecing American taxpayers. Raytheon recently agreed to pay $950 million to resolve investigations concerning defective pricing, foreign bribery and export control schemes. The public is tired of this waste and abuse.
I want the U.S. to have the greatest military in the world and the resources to counter increasingly sophisticated threats from our adversaries, but we need a more sensible approach. That is why I have been the only member on the House Armed Services Committee to vote against the bloated defense budget.
The Air Force overpaid Boeing $1 million for 12 different spare parts for the C-17 Cargo Aircraft.
And that is why I look forward to working with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to reduce waste and fraud at the Pentagon, while strongly opposing any cuts to programs like Social Security, Medicare, the Department of Veterans Affairs or the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. There are several areas of waste and abuse that I hope DOGE will address.
As a starter, consolidation in the defense industry has allowed companies to drive up prices. When I was a freshman member of Congress, I led an investigation on the House Oversight Committee into the defense contractor TransDigm, which through mergers had acquired exclusive rights to sole-source aircraft parts. A report from the Defense Department’s inspector general revealed the company had exploited the American people by overcharging over 4,000 percent on those sole-source parts. In the end, TransDigm returned $16.1 million to the Pentagon. Equally outrageous, a “60 Minutes” report found that the price of stinger missiles has increased from $25,000 in 1991 to $480,000 today. One reason is that Raytheon became the sole supplier and can drive up costs.
Lockheed Martin’s F-35 jet, which DOGE co-chair Elon Musk has rightly criticized, is another example of how a lack of competition has resulted in waste and zero incentive to innovate. The F-35 jet is perpetually behind schedule and $183 billion over budget. The lifetime cost to maintain them will be over $1.7 trillion.
We should make defense contracting more competitive, helping small and medium-sized businesses to compete for Defense Department projects. We can do this by reducing massive sole-source contracts that only specific large companies can fulfill, breaking up major acquisitions into smaller programs, and improving funding and administrative support to help companies cross the “valley of death” between research and product commercialization.
Our biggest program overruns, like the F-35 jet, are what’s known as “cost-plus contracts.” These make taxpayers shoulder the risk of increasing development costs, and take away contractors’ motivations to reduce costs. We must ensure better risk-sharing with contractors and provide incentives for them to reduce program costs. For example, we should award more contracts to vendors who invest in their industrial base and can rapidly respond to the military’s requirements, instead of engaging in stock buybacks.
The Defense Health Agency overpaid by $16.2 million for electric breast pumps.
The Defense Department also needs better acquisition oversight. Defense contractors have gotten away with overcharging the Pentagon and ripping off taxpayers for too long. A Defense Department Inspector General report revealed that the Air Force overpaid Boeing $1 million for 12 different spare parts for the C-17 Cargo Aircraft. The most egregious purchase was $149,072 for soap dispensers — a 7,943% markup. This happened because the Air Force failed to effectively monitor the prices that Boeing, the contractor, provided.
One ingredient for effective price monitoring is better communication across the federal government to ensure the Pentagon isn’t paying more than any other department. The Defense Health Agency overpaid by $16.2 million for electric breast pumps, spending as much as $1,400 for pumps that are $192 in stores. The department’s acquisition processes lacks sufficient controls for defense contractors who can get away with overcharging the government. We have a phenomenal workforce, but they must be paired with state-of-the-art systems and policies to ensure contracts only go to qualified contractors with reasonable prices. Industry obviously cannot be trusted to provide fair pricing and contract negotiations. DOGE should provide recommendations for systems to better manage government spending and acquisition. If the Defense Department had checked all the prices that Boeing provided during the contract negotiations and appropriately monitored price increases throughout the project, they could have prevented this waste. Another area where we can work with DOGE is reducing the billions being spent to maintain excess military property and facilities domestically and abroad. There are 750 U.S. military bases in at least 80 countries that cost taxpayers $55 billion annually. Previous rounds of Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) saved the military $12 billion annually. A new round, focused internationally, could simultaneously save billions and improve national security. Finally, DOGE can also cut the Nuclear-Armed Sea-Launched Cruise Missile program. A July 2023 Congressional Budget Office report estimated that the missile and its warhead cost at least $10 billion from 2023-32. Though the Navy proposed canceling it, Congress has continued funding it. American taxpayers want and deserve the best return on their investment. Let’s put politics aside and work with DOGE to reduce wasteful defense spending. And let’s invest instead in domestic manufacturing, good-paying jobs and a modern national security strategy.
Rep. Ro Khanna
Ro Khanna represents California's 17th congressional district in the House of Representatives. 
