{"id":2752,"date":"2026-06-23T09:36:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T09:36:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=2752"},"modified":"2026-06-23T09:36:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T09:36:16","slug":"hegseth-we-must-spend-big-on-defense-to-save-americas-economic-might","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=2752","title":{"rendered":"Hegseth: We must spend big on defense to save America\u2019s economic might"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Urgency, speed, efficiency, competition and lethality: These are the new guiding principles of our War Department.<\/p>\n

Read more 85-year-old Florida man arrested for hitting 110 mph in street race against Corvette<\/a><\/p>\n

This moment requires defense hawks and fiscal hawks to pull together, and I\u2019m proud to call myself both.<\/p>\n

Our growing national debt is indeed a threat.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s evident to me as a taxpayer and as a Cabinet secretary \u2014 so, unlike Pentagons of the past, \u00a0we\u2019re leading the way on fiscal discipline, spending taxpayer dollars wisely.<\/p>\n

Yet the single greatest threat to America\u2019s national security today is under-investment in military spending.<\/p>\n

If America loses its unquestioned military edge, no amount of fiscal austerity can maintain this nation\u2019s economic health.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why President Donald Trump\u2019s proposed $1.5 trillion fiscal year 2027 defense budget, a generational investment in cutting-edge military advantage, is my department\u2019s No. 1 priority.<\/p>\n

Our job, in conjunction with Congress, is to stop at nothing \u2014 between the base budget, a supplemental request and a reconciliation package \u2014 to ensure we deliver on the commander-in-chief\u2019s vision for American defense dominance: a common-sense, America First military.<\/p>\n

The future of America\u2019s economic and fiscal health depends on it.<\/p>\n

The American people can be forgiven for taking the military aspect of our economic engine for granted.<\/p>\n

For decades the Pentagon has quietly underwritten the foundation of American prosperity \u2014 from the dominance of the US dollar to the stability of borrowing costs to the protection of global trade.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not the Treasury Department alone that keeps the dollar stable, it\u2019s also the US Air Force.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not the Federal Reserve alone that determines interest rates, it\u2019s also the US Marine Corps.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not the Commerce Department alone that maintains free trade, it\u2019s also the US Navy.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s prosperity through strength, and the economic consequences of having the world\u2019s strongest military safeguard economic stability, predictability and American advantage are almost endless.<\/p>\n

When America is unchallenged militarily, economic possibilities abound: We borrow cheaply, transact freely and set the terms of global trade.<\/p>\n

Without that military power, all this becomes uncertain \u2014 because instability and volatility do vast damage to markets, investments and ultimately American jobs.<\/p>\n

As other nations, notably China, are undertaking historic military buildups, we must rebuild a military degraded under anemic Biden defense budgets, while investing heavily in cutting-edge capabilities.<\/p>\n

The domains of space, sub-sea, cyber, AI, autonomous systems and long-range strike will determine future battlefields \u2014 and will in turn determine our economic and fiscal prospects.<\/p>\n

My department has been briefing every member of Congress on the urgent nature of global threats, and about how this once-in-a-lifetime budget not only meets those threats, but surpasses them.<\/p>\n

Read more Latin Americans rush right as the US left pushes the policies they\u2019re ditching<\/a><\/p>\n

Militarily \u2014 matching capability to threats \u2014 the president\u2019s defense budget meets the moment, and the same goes for our department\u2019s fiscal efforts.<\/p>\n

The Pentagon has never before passed a comprehensive financial audit, the only major US federal agency to never do so.<\/p>\n

Worse, the Pentagon has never cared<\/em> to pass an audit.<\/p>\n

No longer: The War Department is now on track to pass an audit by 2028, years sooner than expected.<\/p>\n

We made it a priority from Day 1, and the process is forcing every corner of the Pentagon to go line by line with exacting detail.<\/p>\n

Deputy Secretary Steve Feinberg spent the past year going through every line of the budget, gaining a granular understanding of our balance sheet.<\/p>\n

This never-before-done, grinding review enabled us to streamline our budget by dramatically reducing non-priority spending, exposing billions in redundancies.<\/p>\n

It allowed us to shift tens of billions of dollars to our highest-priority missions.<\/p>\n

Finally, we\u2019ve completely flipped our department-wide acquisitions approach from bureaucratic process to business performance.<\/p>\n

We hired world-class businesspeople to cut deals that put the department, and the taxpayer, first.<\/p>\n

In exchange for longer-term orders, defense contractors are now investing their own private capital in new manufacturing plants and assembly lines \u2014 putting hundreds of thousands of Americans to work, and saving our department tens of billions.<\/p>\n

Our warfighters will get the weapons, platforms and technology they need ahead<\/em> of schedule: tomorrow\u2019s weapons today, not yesterday\u2019s weapons tomorrow.<\/p>\n

Our newest programs are now ahead of schedule and under budget, and we\u2019ve got legacy programs moving years faster.<\/p>\n

Large defense contractors understand they must adapt to this new business approach, or we\u2019ll replace them.<\/p>\n

New companies now compete on a level platform.<\/p>\n

When I was in uniform, I can recall hearing Admiral Mike Mullen, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, repeatedly say: \u201cAmerica\u2019s national debt is the single greatest threat to our national security.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

Admiral Mullen was right \u2014 well, half right.<\/p>\n

The national debt is incredibly important, but fiscally responsible defense spending is even more so.<\/p>\n

We can, and must, do both.<\/p>\n

That starts when Congress\u2019 defense and fiscal hawks unite \u2014 and pass the president\u2019s historic defense budget.<\/p>\n

Read more Alan Greenspan fueled America\u2019s boom \u2014 and set a course for future prosperity<\/a><\/p>\n

Pete Hegseth is the United States Secretary of War.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The single greatest threat to America’s national security today is under-investment in military spending: Our future economic health depends on it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2751,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion"],"yoast_head":"\nHegseth: We must spend big on defense to save America\u2019s economic might - Metro Transit Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=2752\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Hegseth: We must spend big on defense to save America\u2019s economic might - 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