Pentagon steak and lobster row is not a first — and it points to older defence spending problems

WASHINGTON — Pete Hegseth, who has used the secondary title “Secretary of War” since President Donald Trump’s Sept. 5, 2025 executive order, is facing scrutiny after watchdog group Open the Books reported that the Pentagon recorded $15.1 million in ribeye steak purchases and $6.9 million in lobster tail purchases in September 2025.

But the figures were department-wide contract and grant spending, not a personal meal tab, and the bigger story is that this was not the first time the U.S. military posted eye-catching food bills at the end of a fiscal year.

The question might be how come this is an issue this year? Has it ever happened before?

September 2025 was not the first Pentagon surf-and-turf spending spike

According to Open the Books’ earlier review of September 2024 spending, the Pentagon bought $16.6 million in ribeye steak and $6.1 million in lobster tail that month — meaning the 2025 steak total was actually lower than the year before, while the lobster figure was only modestly higher.

The same watchdog also reported that in 2025 the department exceeded $7.4 million in lobster tail purchases in four separate months — March, May, June and October — after only one earlier month in history, October 2024, had crossed that level.

On that measure, September 2025 was not even the biggest lobster month in the recent record they compiled.

That makes the current backlash less about a one-off indulgence and more about a pattern. Open the Books says the Defence Department spent $93.4 billion on grants and contracts in September 2025, including $50.1 billion in the final five working days of the fiscal year, making it the largest single-month burst of contract and grant spending by any federal agency since at least 2008.

So why is this being brought forward now?

Why September keeps producing eye-popping bills

The reason is the long-criticized “use-it-or-lose-it” culture of federal budgeting. GAO has said agencies can face incentives to rush obligations as funds near the end of their availability, but it has also cautioned that a fourth-quarter spike does not automatically prove waste.

Budget uncertainty, continuing resolutions and delayed appropriations often slow spending earlier in the year and push contracting activity later.

That context matters in 2025 because GAO said the Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2025 was not enacted until March 2025 and gave the Defence Department added flexibility, including raising the cap on the share of one-year money that could be obligated in the final two months of the fiscal year from 20 per cent to 40 per cent. In plain language, the system itself helped set the stage for a year-end rush.

Still, critics argue the optics are hard to defend. Open the Books said the same September 2025 surge included $2 million for Alaskan king crab, $225.6 million for furniture and millions more for consumer electronics and other non-combat purchases, reinforcing the view that the Pentagon’s late-year buying habit reaches far beyond food.

The older, deeper problem is financial management

The steak-and-lobster story resonates because it lands on top of much larger, much older Pentagon accountability problems. GAO said in September 2025 that the Defence Department reported more than $4.1 trillion in assets on its balance sheet as of Sept. 30, 2024, yet it remains the only major federal agency that has never received a clean audit opinion.

GAO has also kept DOD financial management and business systems modernization on its High Risk List since 1995.

In 2025, GAO expanded that high-risk area to include fraud risk management. It said DOD reported about $10.8 billion in confirmed fraud between fiscal years 2017 and 2024, while the full extent of fraud remains unknown and potentially significant. GAO added that the Pentagon still has more than 100 open recommendations tied to financial management improvements.

Weapon cost overruns remain another historic flashpoint

Procurement has been another recurring concern for decades, and GAO says it remains one. In its 2025 weapon systems assessment, GAO said DOD plans to invest nearly $2.4 trillion to develop and acquire its 106 costliest weapon programs.

It found that combined estimates for 30 major defence acquisition programs rose by $49.3 billion over the previous year, while the average time to deliver even an initial capability stretched to almost 12 years from program start.

One program, the F-35, has become the best-known example of that broader problem. GAO said in 2024 that DOD plans to spend more than $2 trillion to acquire and sustain the F-35 over its lifetime, with sustainment estimates alone rising from $1.1 trillion in 2018 to $1.58 trillion in 2023. GAO also said the fleet’s availability has trended downward and that 30 of its 43 recommendations on the program remained unimplemented.

What the latest controversy really shows

So, no, September 2025 was not the first time the U.S. military spent that kind of money on steak and lobster. The available spending records cited by Open the Books show similar or higher totals in earlier months.

What makes the episode politically potent is that it turns a complicated budgeting story into a simple image: a military department that still struggles with audits, fraud controls, late-year spending surges and multibillion-dollar procurement overruns is once again explaining why taxpayers should not focus on the surf and turf.