WASHINGTON — The Defense Department’s Golden Dome Office has repeatedly refused requests from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) for a briefing on its plans, a senior CBO official said today amid criticisms from the Pentagon that the watchdog organization’s $1.2 trillion cost estimate for the missile shield is based on inaccurate information.
“We have, to date, not been able to talk to the Golden Dome Office,” David Mosher, head of the CBO National Security Directorate, told the Brookings Institution. “We’ve asked them for briefings, and we have not gotten any. They’ve not been willing to do so. So, I know nothing about what they’re actually building.”
Golden Dome leadership and the CBO have been publicly at loggerheads over the cost of the sprawling missile defense program — each citing cost estimates that are hundreds of billions of dollars apart.
Mosher stressed that, as noted in the CBO’s May report, the two offices aren’t counting exactly the same thing: CBO’s tasking was to look at implementing the White House’s original executive order, while the Golden Dome office is projecting current spending plans. Thus, he said, it is unlikely a DoD briefing would change CBO’s analysis.
