At just over $686 billion, the Department of Defense fiscal year 2019 budget request continues the military funding increases promised by the Trump administration in force structure, procurement and investment in future technologies.
Including war funding, the budget is a $74.2 billion, or 10 percent, increase over the fiscal 2018 continuing resolution funding levels the department is currently operating under and a 13 percent increase over the enacted fiscal 2017 budget authorization.
The base budget request is $617 billion. Overseas contingency operations (OCO), or war funding, initially received a $23.2 billion increase from $65.8 billion in the current fiscal year to $89 billion in fiscal 2019. However, after passage of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018, about $20 million was shifted back to the base budget.
“We are appreciative of Congress raising the caps and ending the destructive effects of sequestration-level funding and we are committed to the reforms necessary to be good stewards of taxpayers’ money,” Defense Department Comptroller David Norquist said during a Feb. 12 press briefing at the Pentagon.
“Even with this budget agreement, defense outlays will remain near historical lows as a share of the U.S. economy,” he added. “It is also important to understand the hole we are climbing out of. … During a five-year period, our forces have endured over $400 billion in lost readiness, maintenance and modernization.”
The administration’s fiscal 2019 budget request, which does not yet have money attached to it, would put U.S. defense spending at just over 3 percent of gross domestic product, according to Pentagon budget documents. That is down from 4.5 percent in 2010 and should remain around 3 percent, though rising with inflation, through at least 2023, Norquist said.
That loss is the difference between the fiscal year 2011 enacted budget, had it grown at the rate of inflation, and the various spending agreements reached through fiscal 2018. The bipartisan budget agreement passed last week stops the “hemorrhaging,” Norquist said.
“It is a sign of how deep the hole is that we are in that it takes this big of an increase just to get the department’s budget back to where inflation alone would have put us,” Norquist said.
Funding for Operation Freedom’s Sentinel in Afghanistan and Inherent Resolve in Iraq and Syria make up $61.6 billion of the OCO funding proposed for fiscal 2019. The European Reassurance Initiative, which has been renamed the European Deterrence Initiative while still aimed at countering Russia along NATO’s eastern flank, receives a $1.7 billion bump to $6.5 billion in fiscal 2019.
The fiscal 2019 request seeks to reduce the Pentagon’s reliance on OCO funding, which funds ongoing wars but also has been used to shield base-budget requirements from budget cuts related to federal spending caps. Beginning with fiscal 2020, OCO should decline to $20 billion and should remain constant even as the base budget increases to an estimated $722 billion in fiscal 2023, according to Pentagon budget documents.
“Starting in FY ’20 … we will look to shift the enduring cost of our Overseas Contingency Operations into base on a one-for-one basis, reducing the size of OCO while within the same topline,” Norquist said.
Labeled a “strategy-driven budget” by the Pentagon, the fiscal 2019 budget request continues to build both the military’s capacity and lethality. It funds personnel at a total 2.15 million, an increase of 25,900 active and reserve troops over fiscal 2018 levels. It also sets the stage for a total 56,600 troops by fiscal 2023.
Science and technology funding receives a boost from $13.2 billion in fiscal 2018 to $13.7 billion in the fiscal 2019 budget request. The increase is spread fairly evenly between basic research, applied research and advance technology development. Included are investments in hypersonics, autonomy, cyber capabilities, space, directed energy, electronic warfare and artificial intelligence.
The department’s total acquisition budget – which includes procurement and research, development, test and evaluation funding – would receive a total a $236.7 billion, of which $92.3 billion is for major defense acquisition programs (MDAPs).
Funding for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter was kept constant at $10.7 billion from fiscal 2018, but that amount buys 77 aircraft in fiscal 2019 as opposed to just 70 in the current fiscal year. The number of F/A-18E/F Super Hornets funded jumps from $1.3 billion for 14 aircraft in the fiscal 2018 request to $2 billion for 24 aircraft in the fiscal 2019 request.
The budget funds construction of 10 ships, the same number purchased in the current fiscal year, though the mix is different. The Navy is funded for three Arleigh Burke destroyers instead of two in the current fiscal year and will buy only one Littoral Combat Ship where it was funded for two in the current fiscal year. Funding for two fleet replenishment oiler – up from one – and a single expeditionary sea base where none were funded in fiscal 2018.
The Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle received a bump in funding from $1.9 billion to $2 billion, but that amount will purchase five rockets, up from three in fiscal 2018.
Ground combat systems received significant new investment, including more than doubling resourcing to upgrade the Abrams tanks from $1.2 billion for 56 tanks in fiscal 2018 to $2.7 billion for 153 tanks proposed for fiscal 2019.
Funding for the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) that will replace a portion of the Army and Marine Corps Humvee fleets is nearly doubled from $1.1 billion for 2,777 trucks in fiscal 2018 to $2 billion in fiscal 2019, which will purchase 5,113 trucks.
Troops will see a base pay bump of 2.6 percent, the largest year-over-year increase in nine years.
Facilities investments are requested to rise to $10.5 billion, up from $9.8 billion in the current fiscal-year request.