Read the most recent CSIS research on the U.S. defense budget.
Critics of Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) funds point to regular base budget activities funded under OCO and its use to skirt discretionary spending limits. However, blaming OCO for our defense budget blunders, or calling for its complete elimination, punishes those who need OCO’s benefits without effectively punishing those who’ve instigated its abuse.
Small fleets of aircraft are eroding the purchasing power of the Air Force and limiting its ability to grow or even sustain the size of its current force.
On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper notified members of Congress that he would take $3.6 billion from military construction projects to build 175 more miles of wall along the U.S. border with Mexico.
On August 10, the Department of Defense kicked off a defense-wide zero-based review. This brief explains what the review entails, which defense-wide organizations are subject to it, and previous efforts at driving efficiencies in the “Fourth Estate.”
On August 2, 2019, President Trump signed the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2019, raising the budget caps for FY 2020 and FY 2021 and suspending the debt ceiling. Seamus Daniels and Todd Harrison assess the impact of the budget deal on defense in their latest analysis.
President Trump signed off on a two-year budget deal that does many good things: it keeps that the government running, raises the debt ceiling, funds defense and domestic programs at levels their proponents can accept and does all this two months before the fiscal year begins. The downside is that the deal adds $1.6 trillion to the deficit over the next ten years, a bill the current generation has no intention of paying and which it happily sends to its children and grandchildren.
The new budget deal adds $1.6 trillion to the deficit over the next ten years, a bill the current generation has no intention of paying and which it happily sends to its children and grandchildren.
Esper will likely conduct a “night court” process for DoD, which means that every program will need to be justified in terms of the national defense strategy’s reorientation towards great power conflict.
The clock is ticking, and the Senate, where floor time is always at a premium, has only 35 days in session after July 4th before fiscal 2020 begins (August is mostly recess, unless the Senate decides to enjoy the swelter of a Washington summer).
Congress will likely pursue a budget agreement that raises the Budget Control Act spending limits from their original levels for FY 2020. If they fail, the Department of Defense faces sequestration for the first time since 2013.