A top U.S. general on Thursday joined military leadership and lawmakers in condemning the continuing resolution (CR) that is currently funding the government and is soon to expire, asking Congress to deliver a budget for the Pentagon in the coming weeks – even if it is subject to spending constraints.
“This is the ninth year that we’ve operated under a continuing resolution,” Air Force Gen. Paul Selva, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at an Air Force Association event, referring to the short-term appropriations bill that until April 28 has frozen federal funding at levels from the prior fiscal year. Selva noted that the President Donald Trump administration is the first to transition into office under such legislation.
(Photo: U.S. Air Force)
A freeze in funding for national defense is “destructive to the way we do business,” Selva said, because these resolutions “tie us to yesterday’s plan” and “force us to spend money on things we don’t need, and prevent us from spending money on things we do need.”
Selva said he hopes Congress in coming weeks will lift the CR and deliver a new fiscal year 2017 budget, even if it subject to Budget Control Act caps. The budget year ends on Sept. 30.
“We can navigate the rest of the uncertainty,” he said. “If you’re going to play politics with the administration’s request for additional funds, give us the budget you said you were going to nearly a year ago when we started the debate over the [fiscal 2017] budget.”
The House of Representatives last month approved a $577.9 billion defense appropriations bill for FY ’17, sending it to the Senate for consideration. The bill would fund the Defense Department at a level $5.2 billion higher than the fiscal 2016 enacted level. The White House also last month released its budget blueprint for FY ’18, proposing $639 billion in funding for the department, or $52 billion over the current level.
Selva is not the only official to sound the alarm over the CR and its fast-approaching expiration. Last week, Air Force Gen. John Hyten, commander of U.S. Strategic Command, said during a Senate hearing that another short-term spending allowance for this fiscal year would become a “very significant issue,” making it difficult to start new programs and delaying recapitalization programs necessary to maintain each leg of the nuclear triad.
House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) also said last week that another CR for the rest of this fiscal year would “do too much harm” and that he would oppose any such proposal.