The Pentagon released more details on its five-year spending plans yesterday, which show a boost in weapons purchases of $24 billion and decrease in research funding by $3.6 billion.
The so-called Green Book, formally named the National Defense Budget Estimates for FY 2013, is based on President Barack Obama’s fiscal year 2013 budget proposal before Congress, which seeks $525.4 billion in discretionary budget authority, or $620.3 billion with mandatory and war spending included.
The Green Book “shouldn’t change investor views on the defense sector, but it fills in some blanks,” Byron Callan, director of Capital Alpha Partners LLC in Washington, said in a message to investors yesterday. Pentagon Comptroller Robert Hale released the 272-page document.
It shows budget authority for weapons procurement spending growing $24 billion over five years, from $98.8 billion in FY ’13 to $104.3 billion in FY ’14, $112.3 billion in FY ’15, $116.3 billion in FY ’16, and $122.9 billion in FY ’17. Those increases would follow overall boosts in the Pentagon’s total discretionary budget authority, which would rise from $525.4 billion in FY ’13 to $567.3 billion in FY ’17.
Still, the Pentagon is proposing a raft of cuts to weapons programs, as part of its plans to cut $259 billion in planned spending over the next five years and $487 billion over a decade to jibe with budget restrictions in the Budget Control Act of 2011. Those decade-long cuts could roughly double if Congress does not agree to a deficit-cutting plan this year, a scenario that would trigger so-called sequestration reductions to defense spending; the Green Book, though, does not reflect the potential sequestration cuts.
The budget document does indicate decreased research, development, test, and evaluation (RDT&E) funding. Developmental weapons programs Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has proposed scaling back over the next five years including the Navy’s SSBN(X) ballistic-missile submarine.
The Green Book shows a five-year drop of $3.6 billion in budget authority for RDT&E. Under the Pentagon’s plans, such funding would change from $69.4 billion in FY ’13 to $69.8 billion in FY ’14, $69.2 billion in FY ’15, $66.8 billion in FY ‘16, and $65.8 billion in FY ’17.
The document shows the Army’s share of Total Obligational Authority (TOA) declining to 18 percent by FY ’15 from 20 percent in FY ’13 and 25 percent in FY ’11, which Callan notes is not surprising. The Navy’s TOA share, meanwhile, rises to 41 percent by FY ’15, from 39 percent in FY ’13 and 36 percent in FY ’11. The Air Force’s TOA piece is fairly steady, ranging from 40 percent to 42 percent from FY ’13 to FY ’17.