‘Department of War’ rebrand could cost up to $125 million, CBO estimates
By Kaanita Iyer, CNN
(CNN) — Rebranding the Department of Defense to the Department of War, as per President Donald Trump’s September executive order, could cost up to $125 million, the Congressional Budget Office said in an estimate published Wednesday.
Depending on how the department chooses to implement the change, costs could range from $10 million to $125 million, the CBO said in a letter to two Democratic senators. If Congress joins the Pentagon in statutorily changing the department’s name, it could cost “hundreds of millions of dollars.”
The CBO, which aims to provide objective, nonpartisan information to Congress, added that its “estimate is uncertain” because the Department of Defense decline to provide the details of its plans. CNN has reached out to the Pentagon for more information on how it plans to implement the name change.
The effort to rename the Department of Defense is part of the Secretary Pete Hegseth’s larger rebranding of the agency, which has included emphasis on the fitness and appearance of service members, public messaging on troops’ lethality and strength and the rolling back of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) measures.
According to the CBO, costs would largely go toward updating signage, letterheads and the DOD website — which has already been changed. The rebranding could get more expensive depending on how fast the department implements the changes, like if it immediately replaces items that say Department of Defense as opposed to waiting until those stocks deplete.
“The faster the changes were implemented, the more parts of DoD that the changes applied to, and the more complete the renaming, the costlier it would be,” the CBO wrote.
The CBO said that according to a spending report it obtained from the Pentagon, five organizations within the Office of the Secretary of Defense spent $1.9 million over the span of 30 days on revised “flags, plaques, identification badges, and updated training materials.”
Trump’s executive order authorized the Secretary of Defense, the Department of Defense and subordinate officials to use secondary titles like “Secretary of War,” “Department of War,” and “Deputy Secretary of War” in official correspondence, public communications, ceremonial contexts, and non-statutory documents within the executive branch, according to a fact sheet obtained by CNN last September.
The fact sheet appeared to recognize Trump would need Congress’s help to make the change permanent, but Trump at the time said he was uncertain of that.
“I don’t know, but we’re going to find out, but I’m not sure they have to,” he said.
When President George Washington founded the country’s Army, he named it Department of War. But the name was later changed in 1949 as part of a broader reorganization of the military under President Harry Truman.
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CNN’s Samantha Waldenberg, Haley Britzky and Alejandra Jaramillo contributed to this report.
