The Problem With America's $1 Trillion Military Budget
US defense spending is on track to top $1 trillion for the first time in history. Congress approved $900 billion for defense in 2026, and President Donald Trump has since proposed a staggering $1.5 trillion defense budget for 2027, the largest request in decades. Much of that money goes to weapons like the F-35, which can cost over $100 million apiece. So why are American weapons so incredibly expensive?
In this episode of So Expensive, we trace more than a century of US military spending, from the Wright brothers selling the first military airplane for $30,000 in 1909, to Henry Ford's Willow Run plant cranking out a B-24 bomber every hour during World War II, to today's sprawling, trillion-dollar weapons programs.
We also dig into how the defense industry consolidated from 51 major contractors down to just five: Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, Raytheon, and General Dynamics. That shift gave these companies enormous leverage over the Pentagon. The result? Cost overruns, missed deadlines, and weapons systems that even the US military can't repair without going back to the contractors that built them.
00:00 - Intro
01:01 - The First Defense Contracts
02:49 - World War II
05:54 - The Cold War
07:14 - The Last Supper
09:39 - Weapons Manufacturing
11:33 - Weapons Maintenance
15:18 - Reforms
18:10 - What's Next?
20:02 - Credits
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#usdefense #militaryspending #militarypower #weaponsystems #defensecontractors #SoExpensive
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The Real Reason America's Weapons Are So Expensive | So Expensive | Business Insider
