The Senate’s top defense appropriator said the Pentagon will require a “bigger number” for its fiscal year 2025 budget topline than the nearly $850 billion requested, cautioning the imposed one percent spending increase could hinder modernization efforts.
“The [Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee] Ranking Member [Susan] Collins (R-Maine) and myself think we need a bigger number. And the reason for that, and you know this better than I, is because if we’re going to invest in future technologies, this number has to be bigger,” Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), the panel’s chair, said during a hearing.
Tester and Collins pressed Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on the impacts the department may face having to operate under the spending cap set by last year’s debt limit deal and the Fiscal Responsibility Act, which locked in a one percent increase in FY ‘25 for defense and non-defense toplines.
“We must be clear-eyed that this budget request would represent a real cut in funding for the Department of Defense, as it fails to keep pace with inflation. It proposes a defense funding increase of just one percent, $8.6 billion relevant to the current fiscal year. That amount is well short of the $22.5 billion year-over-year increase that the department would need simply to cover projected cost escalations related to fuel, military and civilian pay and medical care. This is a nearly $14 billion shortfall. It means that the president’s request shifts funding away from modernization, readiness and procurement to cover these must-pay costs,” Collins said.
The Pentagon in March rolled out its $849.8 billion FY ‘25 budget submission, with the topline adhering to the spending cap, while department officials noted that figure is about $10 billion below the originally projected topline (Defense Daily, March 11).
“We need to understand what risks this lower budget creates for our military personnel, our operations around the globe and our modernization efforts,” Tester said.
Austin said the budget constraints led the department to make “tough decisions,” to include focusing on modernization efforts that could produce near-term results over projects that may not come to fruition until the 2030s.
“To meet the [spending] caps approved by Congress, we had to make some tough but responsible choices, and we prioritized near-term readiness…We decided not to invest in some modernization that would not deliver results before 2030 and we invested in our people and our families,” Austin said. “Because we did accept some risk in modernization for the outyears, we’ll need to have a growth in the topline in the outyears to ensure that we can recapture some of the things that we weren’t able to get into this budget”
A senior defense official told reporters at the time of the Pentagon’s budget rollout that the department’s aim is to get back to the projected spending path rolled out with its FY ‘24 budget request, presenting a slide that showed a “nearly identical” plan to get to a topline north of $920 billion by FY ‘29.
Tester asked Austin if he believes the Pentagon will be able to “catch up and remain on schedule” with longer-term modernization efforts if those investments in the outyears are put into subsequent budgets.
“I do, chairman, if we are provided the resources and the growth in the topline in the outyears that we’ll ask for,” Austin responded.
Air Force Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said during Wednesday’s hearing he doesn’t anticipate any near-term operational impacts from the constrained budget topline due to the Pentagon’s decision to focus on readiness.
“Now, as the secretary highlighted, as we had to defer some of our modernization, if you think about five, six years or a decade from now there’s potential challenges if we don’t get the additional support in the topline in the outyears,” Brown said.
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), chair of the Appropriations Committee, signaled support for a potential defense topline boost, while echoing recent comments on the Senate floor that she believes any such increase will have to be paired with a similar move for non-defense spending.
“We are working with tight fiscal constraints. But Secretary Austin, it is so important we make sure not only that your department has the resources needed to execute our National Defense Strategy but that your counterparts across government also have the resources they need to keep our country safe. The one percent increase in funding provided for FY ‘25 under the [spending] caps is as inadequate for non-defense spending as it is for the Department of Defense,” Murray said. “As it comes to additional resources above the [spending] caps, which the vice chair and others have mentioned, I’m going to insist on parity for non-defense spending to make sure that we are providing for our children and families, keeping them safe.”
During last summer’s budget cycle, Murray and Collins offered a proposal to add $8 billion to the Pentagon’s topline for emergency spending above the defense spending cap mandated by the debt ceiling agreement, while that was ultimately not included in the final FY ‘24 appropriations bill (Defense Daily, March 21).