The $1 Trillion Black Box

ProPublica is launching an investigative series into what it calls the trillion-dollar black box of U.S. defense spending. The newsroom points to vague line items like thirty-two point six billion dollars for Air Force procurement, and notes that the Pentagon itself has never passed a comprehensive financial audit. Examples include the F-35 fighter, expected to cost two trillion dollars over its lifetime, and the Zumwalt destroyers, which ballooned from one point five billion to over ten billion per ship. ProPublica reports that just five companies received seven hundred seventy-one billion dollars in defense contracts from 2020 to 2024, and is asking the public for help untangling where the money goes.

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