A congressional watchdog now puts the full deployment and operating cost of Trump's Golden Dome missile-defense system at $1.2 trillion — and flags that even at that price it would likely fail to stop an all-out attack. The gap between the White House's public number and the watchdog's estimate isn't a rounding error; it's a structural accountability problem. Congress has an Article I obligation here: no program with a six-fold cost discrepancy and a failure caveat baked in should clear an appropriations committee without a public hearing and a credible independent review.