Pentagon to unveil cuts alongside fiscal 2026 budget request

Briana Reilly, CQ-Roll Call on Mar 13, 2025

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WASHINGTON — Pentagon leaders plan to roll out their recommended cuts to military spending alongside their budget request for fiscal 2026, the Defense Department indicated in a newly released letter to Congress.

The letter, addressed to House Armed Services Chair Mike D. Rogers, R-Ala., and dated March 5, states that Congress will be informed of the results of the so-called budget relook — which called for an internal realignment of 8% of the Defense Department’s budget — as the president’s spending request is made public in the coming weeks.

Obtained by CQ Roll Call on Wednesday, the letter came after Rogers and ranking member Adam Smith, D-Wash., last month asked the military service chiefs to identify infrastructure, programs and processes “that are no longer a priority” for their branch “and could be divested, right sized, or made more efficient.”

“We are committed to eliminating waste, reforming our acquisition processes, and ensuring each dollar within the defense budget is spent wisely,” Rogers and Smith wrote in their Feb. 14 missives. “We have a unique opportunity at this time to make quantifiable progress toward these goals.”

But rather than each service chief responding with a list of their low-priority initiatives, Dane Hughes, the acting assistant secretary of Defense for legislative affairs, opted to weigh in “on behalf of the Department,” his letter said.

Hughes noted that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth previously tasked senior department leaders, combatant commanders and others to review the fiscal 2026 budget estimates, with an intent “to reallocate resources away from low-impact areas, such as DEI and climate change programs, to capabilities focused on lethality and readiness.”

The line is a reference to Hegseth’s Feb. 18 memo seeking a list of recommended reductions to the budgets for each of the next five fiscal years. The request is tied to the department’s development of a list of “offsets” that Robert G. Salesses, who is performing the duties of the Pentagon’s deputy secretary, said in a mid-February statement “are targeted at 8% of the Biden Administration’s FY26 budget, totaling around $50 billion.”

It’s not clear yet which capabilities or accounts could be caught up in the DOD review or the Department of Government Efficiency’s assessment of the Pentagon, which is underway as the entity spearheaded by Elon Musk looks for fraud and waste in federal departments and agencies. Hegseth’s memo exempted 17 categories of programs from consideration, including operations at the U.S. southern border, Virginia-class attack submarines, missile defense, munitions, one-way attack drones and more.

Rogers’ and Smith’s letters were an early sign that finding efficiencies within the military is shaping up to be a clear priority for them as they begin assembling the fiscal 2026 defense policy bill.

The two previously touted the value of spending dollars “smarter” and overhauling the way capabilities are purchased and fielded.