Elon Musk is a man on a mission to bring efficiency to Mars, and perhaps humans. He sees the two as a connected venture. The government has stopped him from the finest innovation, so he is changing the government.

Most will remember that when he takes over Twitter (now X), he will significantly reduce him and eliminate excessive costs. One of his employees recalled receiving a call asking how much the company is paying for cleaning services because they wanted to ensure that X wasn’t paying more than necessary to clean the toilet.

Critics said the platform was coming to an end. They said it’s impossible to run a tech company with such a small staff. How wrong they were. Not only is X continuing to function, it’s growing and more popular than ever. That’s how you run your business. (Related: Tom Basile: There’s one big reason Democrats hyperventilate via Doge)

Now, President Trump has asked Musk to lead an effort to tackle Washington’s bloated bureaucracy through Doge, the government’s efficiency. I have been waiting for my entire life and so far the results have been amazing and exciting.

Doge’s first foray into smaller government agencies like the US International Development Agency has been extremely successful, identifying and eliminating billions of dollars of wasted spending. But if the United States is serious about sorting out American finances, one sacred cow can no longer be ignored: pentagonal.

It’s a $900 billion giant and our budget will continue to run away unless we put it under control. As an eight-year member of the House Armed Services Committee, I had the number one seat in Pentagon waste.

Thankfully, it has not been overlooked. Last week, Doge staff met with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. welcome Open your arms and those.

I’m all for strong national defense. After all, advocates of the American First movement like me are not isolationists. We want the government to do its job without being able to own the US with red ink.

As Lt. Gen. Michael Mullen, former chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff, once said, “Our debt is our most important threat to our national security.” He was right then and he is still right today. Excessive spending weakens the economic stability of the United States and weakens its geopolitical impact over time.

The Pentagon budget is currently closed at $1 trillion per year. This combines what the next ten countries spent on their own troops. And we lost the final war with the Afghan goat Harder, so we can’t get exactly what fits our money.

The simple truth is that without addressing this huge government agency, we can’t balance the federal budget that will bleed a $1.8 trillion deficit each year. Defense spending is almost 15% of all federal spending, more than half of discretionary spending. Do not wipe the deck to repair leaky ships. Insert the hole in.

We all know a long history of waste and fraud from the Pentagon. Americans were furious in the 1980s when it was discovered that the military spent hundreds of dollars on toilet seats and $20 on common screws that cost nickel at hardware stores. Unfortunately, things haven’t gotten better since. It’s getting worse.

Last November, the Pentagon We’re screwed The seventh annual audit in seven years. It cannot explain how $824 billion was spent. Many of the reasons for such waste lie in some of the weapon systems purchased.

The F-35 Co-Strike Fighter is an exhibit of government incompetence. It is the most expensive weapon system in history and lifetime costs are predicted $1.7 trillion – Yes, there’s a sign of T. The goal was noble: multi-purpose, high-tech jets for the Air Force, Navy and Marines.

But the reality was Boondoggle, suffering from delays from day one, cost overruns and performance issues. Today, the cost of a single F-35 aircraft is incurred 100 million dollars Buy Only about 30% It will eventually be fully operational. It’s a failure at a very high cost.

Then there is the coastal combat ship – another pentagonal misfortune. These “agile” warships were supposed to be expensive $220 million each. Instead, they each have recorded over $600 million, and the Navy is already defending some because they can’t trust them in the fight.

Many experts say that the LCS never even makes it a meaningful battle and is likely to become the most expensive burial ffin for our brave seafarers. They deserve better, so does taxpayers.

However, it’s not just the big weapon systems that have problems. It is also the out-of-control size of the defense bureaucracy.

In 2015, a survey found that the Pentagon was bloated and that identifying administrative waste could save $125 billion a year. At the time, the Washington Post It has been reported“After the project recorded much more wasted spending than expected, senior defense authorities moved quickly to kill it by trusting and restraining the outcome.” Even after hearing the news, Congress also maintained a rubber blank check. why? Because defense contractors have lobbyists and politicians love working in the district. It’s not strategy, it’s a chronism.

We need to do better. This is not to interfere with defense. It’s about asking for our money.

We are 34 trillion dollars in debt, and we can quickly outweigh our defense spending on just interest payments. All the dollars we pay excessively on jets that we are not flying correctly are dollars that we cannot invest in roads, tax cuts or one-piece on our next Mars mission. The Pentagon’s massive stuff is crowded with everything else.

Don’t buy scary tactics – cutting waste will not leave us vulnerable. That’s what will happen to smarter spending.

Look at China: They are building modern military forces for a third of our budget. Efficiency, not excessive, wins war. You cannot win wars with China or others with combat missions or planes that can’t fly ships that are blown out of the water before you reach combat.

Donald Trump could not have chosen a better person to run the Doge. Musk has the brain and courage to call waste in places that others fear step on. The budget is confusing. Because we haven’t checked the Pentagon sphere.

Correcting that will fix the future foundation of finances.

Gaetz is a former US Congressman from Florida who served as a member of the House Armed Services Committee for eight years and was a former candidate for Attorney General for President Donald J. Trump. Currently, Gaetz is the host of the Matt Getz Show on one American news network.

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