America’s defense spending dragged into budget chaos 

The Pentagon is venturing into somewhat unprecedented territory as it prepares to release its fiscal year 2025 budget next Monday.

The Department of Defense (Department of Defense) does not yet have a full budget for 2024, faces looming 1% across-the-board cuts unless Congress can break the impasse, and is still reeling from years of high inflation. There is.

Additionally, if the departments are unable to spend their entire budgets by the end of this fiscal year, even if the Pentagon ultimately agrees to a spending plan, the Pentagon likely will not be able to use all of its planned funding. . The dollars must be returned to the Treasury.

More than five months into the current fiscal year, lawmakers are at an impasse, and experts predict the postponement will have ripple effects for combatants for the next two to three years.

“If you have a year’s worth of money, but you’ve only actually used it for six months, there’s a good chance you won’t spend it,” Mackenzie Eaglen, a defense expert at the American Enterprise Institute, told The Hill. Told. “Congress is not doing its job and turning around and siphoning off funds because it’s either spend it or lose it.”

Mr. Eaglen, a former Congressional adviser on national defense issues, said this affects the military twice.

“It’s a double whammy,” she added. “They have been slow to get the money, and because Congress didn’t give it to them on time, they have to immediately give back what they can’t spend.”

The Pentagon is one of several federal agencies that have had short-term budget extensions since the end of September, citing political infighting over spending levels.

Senators passed a bill Friday that would fund numerous government agencies for the remainder of fiscal year 2024, but the bill was sent to President Biden’s desk hours before the shutdown deadline. Only year-round funding was approved for the Departments of Military Affairs and the Department of Agriculture. , offices such as interior, transportation, housing and urban development, justice, commerce and energy.

Biden signed the bill on Saturday, averting a partial shutdown.

Defense is among six remaining federal funding bills that provide funding for controversial areas such as the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Health and Human Services. Budgets for the remaining government agencies are scheduled to be submitted on March 22, but they are expected to be more difficult to pass, according to budget officials.

The background is last year’s debt ceiling deal — an agreement Biden struck last summer with then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) — that would force the Pentagon and others to move forward if Congress fails to pass a full bill. It includes a 1% reduction imposed on all institutions. Submit the fiscal year 2024 (FY-24) budget by April 30.

This situation is not ideal for the US military. The U.S. military is already stretched thin fighting two major wars in Ukraine and Gaza, the latter of which has sparked escalating tensions between the United States and Iran and its proxies. In the Middle East.

The Biden administration had hoped that Congress would pass sweeping additional requests for arms supplies to Ukraine and Israel and funding for military missions along the southern border, but that didn’t happen.

Military leaders have sounded the alarm on the situation, warning in late February that the U.S. military’s personnel costs could run out by the end of the year.

Without the necessary funding, “we have to make a difficult choice… between the ability to fight tonight and prepare for any threat, and the ability to modernize our military for the future.” Undersecretary of the Navy Eric Raven spoke to reporters at a press conference on February 27, along with the undersecretaries of the Army and Air Force.

In addition, Gabe Camarillo, Under Secretary of the Army, said that the Under Secretary of the Army will be forced to spend $500 million from the base budget for European theater operations, $100 million for U.S. Central Command, and $500 million for operations along the U.S.-Mexico border. He said it was gone.

“At one point, the idea was that all of this could be covered by supplements, but today, today, in fiscal year 2024, it’s 100 percent covered by the Army’s base budget,” Camarillo said. “We’re just burning hotter than normal across all our spending accounts.”

Mark Cancian, a budget expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, said this year’s funding situation is unusual given the failure to pass full-year legislation before next year’s blueprint, but the supplement is , throws a whole new level of complexity into the mix.

“There is a large amount of money in the Ukraine grant that is going to the Pentagon to cover ongoing operations. About $5 billion for the Army to cover the costs of its troops in Eastern Europe.” he said. “If we don’t get replenishment money, the Army just has to eat that money.”

The Biden administration is expected to release its fiscal 2025 Pentagon budget on March 11, as Congress struggles to pass the fiscal 2024 defense spending bill across the finish line.

Not knowing what will be funded in the previous fiscal year’s bill adds a new level of uncertainty as we craft the next bill.

“Not only will the budget be cut on Monday without the end of fiscal year 2024, but the House Armed Services Committee has amended the budget.” [National Defense Authorization Act] It was scheduled for last week,” Eaglen said. “We have heard from staff that the portal will be re-opened once the budget documents are in place in case they want to revise their ideas to include actual details, but that just represents the status quo.”