Guns or butter . . . or lobster tails? Pentagon spent $7 million on them in a single month. (Use it or lose it budgeting).

Photo above - In September the Pentagon spent $26,000 on "sushi prep tables". Their location is classified. This table is probably NOT one of them.

I’m guessing the $7 million worth (September alone) of lobster tails didn’t wind up in enlisted service members’ mess halls. Neither did the $15 million in ribeye steaks, or the $26,000 spent on “sushi prep tables”. It’s possible a few of the ice cream machines totaling more than $100,000 found their way onto sultry southern military basses Fort Bliss (Tx) or White Sands (New Mexico).

In total, the pentagon blew through an unbelievable $93 billion at the end of the 2025 budget year. (See link below). They operate under a “use it or lose” budget rule. If they hadn’t bought those lobster tails and king crab legs, there might be no budget money for luxury shellfish in the upcoming year.

For reference purposes, the Pentagon could have purchased 9 aircraft carriers ($10 billion each), or - more to the point - 25,000 Patriot air defense missiles ($3.7 million each). I bet some of our generals are looking at their sushi tables and ice cream machines right now, and wishing it had been missiles instead.

At this point I’m going to ask the obvious question: Where was the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) while all this was happening? DOGE was either told to look the other way, or is incredibly inept. Or got some of those lobster tails.

The article seeks to place sole blame for this fiasco on Pete Hegseth, former Fox Network news announcer, and current US Secretary of Defense.

Hegseth certainly had an opportunity and an obligation to speak up. He probably would have (during his time at Fox) if the Obama or Biden administrations were bulking up on lobster tails and sushi prep tables. But apparently buying exotic food which you don’t need - simply to preserve your budget baseline - is standard government policy across the years.

(note to self - Insert snark here about America’s $38 TRILLION national debt. And whether or not finding new things to tax will “fix our budget”.)

Those of us who have worked in the private sector are familiar with “use it or lose it”. This is how major corporations operate. If you have unfilled headcount and unspent salary dollars in your budget at year end, those get subtracted from next year's baseline funding. This explains why almost half of all corporate hiring happens in the first 90 days of the year. Insurance against both “use it or lose it” and mid-year budget cuts.

So this is a shared problem. Generals, congress, and the White House. Going back decades. Use it or lose it. We spent $93 billion pentagon dollars in September 2025, and on the very next day (October 1st) started a 6-week government shutdown where many federal workers weren’t paid, and normal government services were interrupted. And presumably pentagon officials dined on lobster.

And when the shutdown took effect, nobody held a press conference about the Use it Lose it budget rules. Nobody – democrat, republican, independent, Pentagon official or news network. A confederacy of dunces.

I’m just sayin’ . . .

Pentagon Pete blew a fortune on crabs in multibillion-dollar spending frenzy

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/pentagon-pete-blew-a-fortune-on-crabs-in-multibillion-dollar-spending-frenzy/ar-AA1XV8gz?ocid=msedgntp&pc=HCTS&cvid=69b13523dd25410589bd9ba5e10684d0&ei=54

SumKindaMunster · 56-60, M

https://substack.com/home/post/p-190569853

One of the ways the military tries to keep up morale in hardship postings, taking care of people so they can keep going, is by feeding them the occasional steak dinner, or the occasional lobster tail. If you’ve had steak dinners on government beef, you know from experience that it’s not like eating at Ruth’s Chris. The cooks fry up 4,000 steaks on surf-and-turf day aboard an aircraft carrier — you’re not getting medium-rare and cooked-to-order. But it’s still an appreciated gesture, and for people who have zero option to eat elsewhere while they’re LITERALLY AT WAR, steak night isn’t really that luxurious.

So, “In other pricey food purchases, the government decided to drop $15.1 million on ribeye steak.” Math problem for Molly Jong-Fast: If there are 1.3 million servicemembers on active duty, how much per person is $15.1 million? When you find yourself looking at that number, ask yourself if it counts as pricey.

Keep going: $139,224 on doughnuts FOR 1.3 MILLION PEOPLE. Is that a lot?

A person who can write, in a tone of high outrage, that the American military spent $15 million on steak in a single month has absolutely no idea what anything means. We have professional narrative sensemakers who can’t begin to think. They’re just invariably wrong.

SusanInFlorida · 31-35, F

@SumKindaMunster they spent $93 billion on luxury goods in one month. this was not to raise morale of national guardsmen stationed in the middle east

SumKindaMunster · 56-60, M

@SusanInFlorida Yes actually, the Sushi, Steak and other luxury food items were purchased specifically to honor the troops serving and give them a boost to morale.