New Tool Makes Defense Budget More Accessible

The Heritage Foundation unveiled a “first of its kind” online tool that analyzes and makes accessible the U.S. defense budget.

The tool is available to the public and makes the process of examining budget data from the Defense Department easier, according to a statement from Heritage. Before the creation of the Defense Budget Builder, data was published only on the website of the Undersecretary of Defense (Comptroller), and there was no ability to view it all at one time.

Heritage’s new Defense Budget Builder changes that, said Robert Greenway, director of the Allison Center for National Security. Greenway previously served in the military as a senior intelligence officer at the Defense Intelligence Agency and as a U.S. Army Special Forces combat veteran.

“For too long, this data has been buried in complex, fragmented files that frustrate even seasoned analysts,” Greenway said. “This tool empowers anyone—whether a policymaker, congressional staffer, journalist, or taxpayer—to explore and discuss how the Pentagon allocates resources.”

Heritage encouraged users to compare different defense budget years and create customized defense budgets using the tool. Its launch comes after an initial Department of Government Efficiency report in March identified $80 million in wasteful spending at the Defense Department.

Wilson Beaver, a senior policy adviser at Heritage, hopes the tool will drastically reduce the time it takes to analyze defense budget data.

“With the Defense Budget Builder, we’ve created a tool that makes identifying areas of bloat or misuse and redirecting them into real military capacity possible in minutes, not hours or days,” Beaver said.