On the morning of February 9, roughly eight and a half hours into the second government shutdown of FY 2018, President Trump signed H.R. 1892, the “Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018,” into law. The bill extends a fifth continuing resolution (CR) to fund the government through March 23, but more importantly, it raises the spending limits…
This year’s budget analysis focuses on long-term trends in the defense budget and force structure and identifies key issues facing the Defense Department as it prepares for the FY 2019 budget cycle.
The first ten months of 2017 have posed daunting challenges for the U.S. Navy in the Pacific with the deaths of 17 sailors and multiple serious mishaps. Some lawmakers have pointed to these tragedies as evidence of a “readiness crisis,” resulting in part from insufficient funding from Congress. This paper analyzes the Navy’s readiness funding for maintenance and training within the Navy’s operation and maintenance (O&M) budget relative to historical norms and normalized for the size of the fleet.
On September 8, President Trump signed into law H.R. 601, the “Continuing Appropriations Act, 2018 and Supplemental Appropriations for Disaster Relief Requirements Act, 2017.” The bill addresses several timely concerns, providing $15.25 billion in emergency funding for disaster relief, temporarily suspending the federal debt ceiling, and funding the federal government with a continuing resolution (CR) that runs through December 8. Todd Harrison and Seamus Daniels address critical questions about the continuing resolution and what it means for defense spending in the 2018 fiscal year.