Staff Writer Matthew Cox contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump’s administration is seeking a record-breaking $1.5 trillion defense budget for fiscal 2027—and projecting a $1.28 trillion topline in 2028.
Among the top priorities the White House highlighted in its ’27 budget rollout is the Golden Dome missile defense shield, which an Office of Management and Budget official told Air & Space Forces Magazine is funded for $17.5 billion in the coming year.
OMB unveiled the first details on the ’27 budget request April 3, with a fact sheet laying out the topline funding level and key priorities for the Pentagon with a few specifics.
The overall topline of the defense budget marks a $441 billion increase over the fiscal 2026 budget—the proposed 44 percent jump would mark the biggest one-year increase in recent history, exceeding even the buildup under President Ronald Reagan in the early 1980s.
In fact, budget analyst Todd Harrison of the American Enterprise Institute described the proposed budget as the biggest in U.S. history even when adjusting for inflation, exceeding even the highs of World War II.
“The peak of World War II was in 1945 at a little bit less than $1.2 trillion in today’s dollars. So this would push well above that,” Harrison told Air & Space Forces Magazine.
The $1.5 trillion topline had long been expected after Trump first announced the ambitious figure in January. But the official request is still a major milestone—and faces some skepticism.
The budget is split between $1.15 trillion in base budget “discretionary” funds and $350 million in “mandatory” funds the White House hopes to get from Congress in the form of a reconciliation bill like the one lawmakers passed in summer 2025.
Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), chairs of the Senate and House Armed Services Committees, respectively, praised the $1.5 trillion total in a statement and indicated they would work to pass both a regular appropriations bill and a reconciliation package.
“We are committed to working with the president and our colleagues to pass this budget into law and continue rebuilding American military superiority,” they said.
But Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), ranking member of the Senate committee, countered with his own statement calling the request “not a serious budget.”
“I will not rubber-stamp a bloated, undisciplined budget,” Reed warned. “I will work with my colleagues on a bipartisan basis to carefully scrutinize every penny. Our forces and their families deserve a defense budget and strategy that is worthy of their sacrifice and meets the complex and evolving challenges of the 21st century.”
Byron Callan, a veteran defense analyst for Capital Alpha Partners, said the political dynamics dampen his confidence that the $1.5 trillion topline will actually be enacted by Congress.
“We remain quite skeptical that these figures will be achieved for defense (unless there is another major war) because of the challenge of passing a reconciliation bill and the high probability that the 2026 mid-term election returns split-party control in Congress,” he wrote in a newsletter.
Yet even if lawmakers do manage to pass a $1.5 trillion budget, there are still major questions.
Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. David A. Deptula, dean of AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, has long pushed for major investments in the Department of the Air Force to build capacity. He said the overall $1.5 trillion figure is just part of that.
“The key question is no longer whether the topline is large enough,” Deptula said. “The key question is whether it is translated into real combat capacity, readiness, and modernization in a sustained, multiyear way. … Bottom line: the topline is necessary, but not sufficient. It creates the opportunity to rebuild Air Force and Space Force capacity. Execution and prioritization will determine whether that opportunity is realized.”
Harrison also questioned whether the Pentagon—along with the defense industrial base—can handle such a massive increase.
“It’s a double-edged sword,” Harrison said. “It’ll give DOD a lot of money in the near-term to potentially catch up on procurement, buy a lot of munitions that have been running low; catch up on modernization of other parts of the force structure like ships, aircraft, etc. The problem is going to be execution. Can they actually execute that much money that quickly? … I am skeptical.”
What’s more, Harrison pointed out that OMB’s budget projects a lower topline in fiscal 2028, $1.284 trillion, followed by a modest increase in 2029 to $1.291 trillion. The White House includes projections all the way out to 2036, but those plans will likely change with a new administration taking over in early 2029 and formulating its first budget in fiscal 2030.
The projected decrease from 2027 to 2028 is driven by a lack of projected reconciliation funding, and Harrison said it shows a significant difference between now and the Reagan buildup on the 1980s.
“With the comparison to Reagan, Reagan’s budget came with a FYDP projection that showed continued increasing, steady increasing over the coming five years,” Harrison explained. “Whereas this budget … it does not have the same trajectory at all, or the same shape, if you will, as the Reagan buildup. It’s more of a spike.”
Golden Dome
Besides the topline, OMB’s budget rollout was relatively light on dollar amounts for specific defense programs. The Pentagon is expected to announce more details April 21, according to multiple reports, but an OMB spokesperson did confirm to Air & Space Forces Magazine that Golden Dome is slated to get $17.5 billion, signaling its importance to the administration.
The $17.5 billion figure is a decrease from the $25 billion the Pentagon requested for the effort in fiscal 2026, most of which came from reconciliation funding. OMB described the $25 billion as a “down payment” that the $17.5 billion in 2027 will “build on.”
“The budget supports development of game-changing space-based missile defense sensors and interceptors, kinetic and non-kinetic missile defeat and defense capabilities, and enabling technologies for a layered, next-generation homeland missile defense system,” the fact sheet states.
Space Force Gen. Michael A. Guetlein, director of Golden Dome, gave a hint of where the military will focus its efforts in March, when he was explaining why the Pentagon has raised its total cost estimate for the program from $175 billion to $185 billion.
“We were asked to accelerate some space capabilities to move the current program schedules from the right to the left,” he said at the McAleese Defense Programs Conference. “They gave us $10 billion extra to accelerate those capabilities with the United States Space Force.”
Specifically, Guetlein cited the Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor, the Space Force’s data transport layer, and space-based air moving target indicator capabilities as priorities.