Read the most recent CSIS research on the U.S. defense budget.
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.
The proposed FY 2020 budget for missile defense lacks the programmatic and budgetary muscle movements to contribute meaningfully to overall U.S. deterrence and defense goals.
There is no question that Pentagon’s 2020 budget takes significant steps to move the department from a focus on regional conflicts and counter-insurgency to a focus on great power conflicts. But the four services clearly are struggling with this balance.
The Navy had several viable approaches for adapting its carrier force to the new defense strategy. Instead, it opted to avoid a decision and will waste billions of dollars as a result. Funds for shipbuilding are too scarce to waste. It’s time to make a decision about carriers.
The Trump administration is not requesting that Congress raise the budget caps at all, either for defense or non-defense. Instead, the administration is asking Congress to use a loophole in the law to allow for higher defense spending without breaching the budget caps: overseas contingency operations (OCO) funding.