By Emelie Rutherford
The Obama administration said yesterday it will send a request to Congress “in the next few weeks” for $75.5 billion in supplemental war funding for the remainder of fiscal year 2009, followed by a $130 billion war-spending plan for FY ’10 that will accompany the Pentagon’s detailed budget request in April.
The White House’s Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) broad outline of its FY ’10 federal budget request unveiled yesterday calls for $533.7 billion in base Department of Defense (DoD) funding, a 4 percent increase over the FY ’09 appropriated level of $513 billion. OMB divulged no details on weapon spending within the FY ’10 base budget request or the two forthcoming war-spending measures.
Pentagon officials have signed non-disclosure agreements on defense budget deliberations. Several congressional aides said yesterday they received the same basic data on the DoD’s topline for FY ’10 that OMB released to the public. The new fiscal year begins Oct. 1.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned Pentagon reporters yesterday that “in the days to come, any information you may receive about budget or program decisions will undoubtedly be wrong.”
“Because I intend to wait until the end of our review process before making any decisions,” Gates said. “Putting together a budget package this large, complex, and inter-related requires a coherent and holistic process, a process that would be undermined if decisions about particular programs are made piecemeal or before the assessment is complete.”
The defense secretary, echoing previous statements, said the ongoing budget deliberations include “efforts to realize cost efficiencies, reassess all weapons programs, especially those with serious execution issues, and rebalance investments between current and future capabilities.” He warned again the Pentagon will make “tough choices” to ensure the budget best positions the military to deal with the most pressing threats and challenges during these austere budget times.
The defense budget also includes “placeholder estimates” of $50 billion per year in war funding for FY ’11 and beyond, according to the document released yesterday. OMB Director Peter Orszag told reporters that such out-year funding was inserted “in the spirit of a placeholder, in case those costs become necessary, even though we hope they will not be.”
President Obama’s broad budget request emphasizes his commitment to “increase the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan while responsibly removing combat forces from Iraq.”
It also calls for a “transparent budget process” that “simultaneously and separately requests” base-budget and war funding. The budget document refers to funding for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars as “overseas contingency operations costs.”
Some war costs are folded into the administration’s FY ’10 base budget request. Lawmakers including Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) have called for the Pentagon to outright end the practice of separating war spending from the base defense bill starting in FY ’10.
Examples of war costs folded into the FY ’10 base budget plan relate to the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization, end-strength increases for the Army and Marine Corps, and wounded-warrior programs, Gates said at the Pentagon.
Gates told lawmakers in a Dec. 31 letter that the FY ’09 supplemental would include $600 million for buying four F-22 stealth fighters, $10.8 billion for body armor, and armored vehicles, $1.5 billion for efforts to thwart improvised explosive devices, and $3.6 billion for intelligence and Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) initiatives (Defense Daily, Jan. 6).
The Obama administration’s proposed $533.7 billion FY ’10 base defense budget amount differs slightly from previous estimates. The Bush administration estimated early last year the FY ’10 defense budget would be $524 billion in discretionary spending, or $527 billion including mandatory spending. Late last year a $580 billion-plus proposal was crafted inside the Pentagon.
House Armed Services Committee (HASC) Ranking Member John McHugh (R-N.Y.) in a statement said yesterday the president’s newly unveiled budget document is “fraught with questions that can only be answered once we receive the full budget.”
He cited four questions that have been asked by others on Capitol Hill: What programs will have to be cut in order to accommodate the decision to shift some costs; how will the president balance the need to support current troops against the necessity to build capabilities to win future wars; which modernization programs will receive less funding or be canceled as a result; and whether Democrats will follow the president’s lead or slash defense spending.
HASC Chairman Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), in a statement pledged yesterday to “closely examine the President’s full budget proposal when it becomes available,” and said at first look he believes $533.7 billion is a “reasonable level” for defense funding.
OMB yesterday released projected figures for future years’ base defense budgets: $541.8 billion in FY ’11; $550.7 billion in FY ’12; $561.1 billion in FY ’13; and $574.5 billion in FY ’14. The budget document pegs the FY ’10 through FY ’14 total at $2.76 trillion, and the FY ’10 through FY ’19 total at $5.85 trillion.
Gates said the 10-year defense budget estimates will undoubtedly change over time because of evolving strategy, force levels in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Quadrennial Defense Review.
Orszag said more details on the president’s FY ’10 budget will emerge in April.
The blueprint released yesterday also says defense acquisition reforms will be coming from the administration.
“The Administration will set realistic requirements (for DoD’s new weapons programs) and stick to them and incorporate ‘best practices’ by not allowing programs to proceed from one stage of the acquisition cycle to the next until they have achieved the maturity to clearly lower the risk of cost growth and schedule slippage,” the budget outline states.