Fiscal Year 2026 Budget for the Department of Defense

Secretary Hegseth's Remarks

  • Thanked the committee for the opportunity to testify in support of President Trump's proposed fiscal year 2026 budget for the Department of Defense.
  • Honored to testify alongside General Dan Cain and Brynn McDonnell.
  • Expressed pride in representing and serving the warriors and their families.
  • Highlighted their role in keeping America safe, defending the homeland, and deterring communist China.
  • Emphasized working with allies and partners to achieve peace through strength.
  • Thanked the committee and Congress for the bipartisan leadership in giving troops a pay raise in 2025, including a 10.5% raise for junior enlisted service members (E1-E4).
  • Mentioned support for initiatives to improve the quality of life for warriors and their families.
  • Directed additional actions to further improve their quality of life, including investments in barracks and base housing, PCS process reform, and healthcare quality improvement.
  • Stated that the budget gives warriors what they need.
  • The budget request is 961,600,000,000 (over 1,000,000,000,000 for national security).
  • Aims to end four years of chronic underinvestment in the military.
  • Found nearly 30,000,000,000 in savings across the department and reinvested them.
  • Eliminated wasteful programs, targeted bureaucratic excess, and redirected funding from Biden-era priorities to President Trump's priorities.
  • Reoptimizing the civilian workforce and repositioning resources to better support warfighters.
  • Working with the Department of Homeland Security to increase border security.
  • Reduced China's malign influence in the hemisphere and defended freedom of navigation in the Red Sea.
  • Identified three core priorities:
    • Restore the warrior ethos.
    • Rebuild our military.
    • Reestablish deterrence.
  • Warrior Ethos:
    • Focused on war fighting, lethality, meritocracy, standards, and readiness.
    • Sweeping away distractions and bloated bureaucracy.
    • High, equal, and unwavering standards.
    • DEI is dead and replaced with a color-blind, gender-neutral, merit-based approach.
    • Recruiting and retention are higher than they've been in decades.
  • Rebuilding Military:
    • Correcting mistakes after 25 years when our military was unchallenged and China carried out an unprecedented military buildup.
    • Reviving the defense industrial base, reforming the acquisitions process, and rapidly fielding emerging technologies.
    • Investing 25,000,000,000 in the Golden Dome for America to defend the homeland.
    • Committing more than 62,000,000,000 to modernize and sustain nuclear forces.
    • Allocating 3,500,000,000.0 for the F-47.
    • Revitalizing the shipbuilding industrial base with 6,000,000,000 in funding for FY26 and a total of 47,000,000,000 in shipbuilding.
    • Significantly increasing funding for autonomous systems, long-range fires, drones, and hypersonics.
  • Reestablishing Deterrence:
    • Opponents will be deterred by well-equipped, tough warriors.
    • Credible deterrence starts at home by securing the borders (100% operational control of the southern border with crossings already dropped 99.9%).
    • The Indo-Pacific is the priority theater, and China is the pacing threat.
    • Allies and partners need to step up and share the burden of their own defense.
  • The Department of Defense is executing a common-sense agenda to achieve peace through strength.
  • The budget matches capabilities to threats.
  • Must overcome decades of neglect and decline and fortify our position as the world's most lethal fighting force.

General Cain's Remarks

  • Thanked the committee and expressed gratitude for their commitment and cooperation.
  • Stated that today's hearing reflects a shared commitment to maximize efficiency, accountability, and lethality of taxpayer investments.
  • His responsibility is to understand global conditions, advise the secretary, and integrate joint forces.
  • The President's budget enables the joint force to defend the nation against adversaries.
  • The budget empowers the joint force to pursue the three pillars: restoring warrior ethos, rebuilding the military, and reestablishing deterrence.
  • The budget invests in warfighters to win on future battlefields with lethal, modern, reliable, and survivable systems at scale.
  • The necessary tools to reinvigorate our national and defense industrial base are provided.
  • The goal is for the joint force to get globally integrated, working with military, allies, partners, industry, and interagency.
  • The budget reflects a mandate to stay ready, anticipate the next fight, and deliver for our force and their families.
  • Meaningful investments are made in service members and their families, improving quality of life, housing, medical care, and the moving process.
  • Highlighted the service member over his right shoulder, the senior enlisted adviser to the chairman, who will retire after thirty-seven years, Sergeant Major Troy Black.
  • Assured the committee that the joint force remains committed, capable, and ready to defend our nation.
  • Expressed gratitude for those deployed and their families and remembered the fallen and their families.
  • Acknowledged the 2,800,000 members of our joint force.