In just the past four fiscal years, Congress appropriated, with virtually no public debate, in excess of $100 billion more than any president sought for more than 2,000 weapons programs, according to a government watchdog group’s database and recent Pentagon reports.

And there is more on the way this year.

House and Senate Defense appropriators from both parties have proposed allocating, between their two fiscal 2026 spending bills, $52.2 billion for 1,403 “program increases” to the Pentagon’s weapons budget request, according to a previously unreleased database from Taxpayers for Common Sense, a group that monitors government spending. That’s more than double the amount that was being proposed for such additions in the two bills combined at this stage of the process just two years ago.

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