Trump wants $18B for Golden Dome. It would require reconciliation funds, again

The White House’s record-shattering $1.5 trillion 2027 defense budget request would put nearly $18 billion towards the massive Golden Dome missile defense program, but will rely almost entirely on yet-to-be approved reconciliation funds. 

Nearly all of the $17.5 billion the White House is seeking for Golden Dome in this year’s budget would come from reconciliation funding, an Office of Management and Budget spokesperson confirmed to Defense One. Congress uses reconciliation, a special budgetary process which requires a simple majority to pass, to quickly enact mandatory spending legislation. Less than $400 million for the missile defense program would come from the budget’s baseline discretionary funds.

“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 White House said in budget documents on Friday, adding that the administration is continuing “innovative program management and acquisition approaches to prudently employ taxpayer dollars.” 

Defense experts fear Golden Dome’s continued reliance on Congressionally-funded reconciliation is a bad sign for the administration’s hallmark defense project. President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill signed into law this past summer pushed $23 billion in mandatory funds towards the project. But Todd Harrison, an American Enterprise Institute senior fellow and defense budget expert, said reconciliation funding isn’t a guarantee in future budgets. 

“The whole program is on unstable footing,” Harrison said. “If they have not been able to move the main funding lines into the base budget, because reconciliation is highly unlikely to continue beyond FY27, then where does all the Golden Dome funding go in FY28?”

Overall, $350 billion of the $1.5 trillion 2027 defense budget request would come from reconciliation funds, according to the White House’s budget documents. The White House’s budget projections from 2028 through 2036 don’t showcase any additional mandatory funding, which would reduce the total defense spending.

Harrison said he was not surprised the Golden Dome-related reconciliation funds decreased from last year’s $23 billion to a little more than $17 billion in the proposed budget request.

“Golden Dome still has plenty of money sitting around waiting to be used,” Harrison said. “So it’s not too surprising that they’re requesting a lesser amount.”

In January, lawmakers criticized the Defense Department for failing to provide budgetary details and justifications for the $23 billion in Golden Dome-related reconciliation funds. A Pentagon planning document obtained by Defense One last month showed that numerous Golden Dome-related funds had yet to be allocated. 

Space Force Gen. Michael Guetlein, Trump’s Golden Dome czar, told attendees at the McAleese Defense Programs Conference last month that he’s provided details to Congress on the program’s progress and that reconciliation funds are freed up.

“I have personally briefed all six committees numerous times on everything that we’re doing on Golden Dome, to include the detailed costs of what Golden Dome is going to cost,” Guetlein said. “All of the funding for Golden Dome under reconciliation has flowed, and we’ve got a very close partnership with OMB and [the National Security Council] on execution of those funds.”

Gutelin also announced then that the program’s projected price tag had jumped $10 billion to $185 billion. Defense experts believe those costs will continue to skyrocket. 

The budget documents released Friday also include a mention that Trump’s Golden Dome won’t be a surefire solution against domestic missile threats, a reality that physicists have acknowledged.

“The initiative’s scope is to develop and mature a versatile, multi-layered defense system. The goal is to not create a ‘perfect’ defense, but to provide an increasingly effective shield that enhances the U.S. capability to deter attacks, disincentivize arms racing, and negotiate from a position of strength,” the budget document reads. “For Fiscal Year 2027, the program will balance investments in next-generation technologies with the strengthening of existing foundational capabilities to improve near-term readiness and build for the future.”

While Trump has not explicitly claimed the system would be flawless, he described it in near-absolute terms from the Oval Office last May as being capable of intercepting a wide-variety of missiles from anywhere in the world with an interception rate of “very close to 100 percent.”