The push to supersize Pentagon spending ratchets up
The fight over Biden's $813 billion national defense budget will come to a head when the House and Senate begin work this month.
The defense industry is also sounding off on the budget. The Aerospace Industries Association, a top advocacy group, joined the calls for higher defense spending last week, urging House and Senate leaders to adopt a 3 to 5 percent post-inflation hike.
AIA President and CEO Eric Fanning argued in a letter to Armed Services and Appropriations committee heads that “no credible analysis can support” competition with China and Russia with smaller budgets.
“The topline discussion should start with support for adequate financial investment,” Fanning wrote. “Three to five percent growth above the inflation rate is the level of investment required to support America’s global force, maintain our competitive edge over adversaries, and catch up technologically in areas where we are falling behind.”
Pentagon leadership also hasn’t ruled out the possibility of more money to tackle inflation.
Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks in May said the department would work with Congress “to make sure that we have the purchasing power for this program” in the coming fiscal year.
“If at the end of the day it’s this program with an inflation factor that is, again, going to be a projection by the United States Congress that we feel is closer to accurate, and then we work on, through supplementals next year, anything where we’re off. ... I think that’s a really good outcome for us,” Hicks said at an event hosted by the Reagan Institute. “We want this program.”
Republicans have seized on testimony in April from Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Mark Milley acknowledging that the budget’s assumptions are outdated.
Still, Austin and Pentagon brass have defended their proposal as robust in the face of inflation. Comptroller Mike McCord noted that the Pentagon doesn’t use the widely cited Consumer Price Index, which now pegs inflation at more than 8 percent, to calculate the change in its costs. He also told lawmakers that the administration responded to inflation by adding approximately $20 billion per year to Pentagon budget projections through fiscal 2027.
Hicks, however, warned against heaping on billions of dollars for weapons the Pentagon didn’t request — an annual tactic that Congress will likely employ if lawmakers approve a higher topline.
“What we don’t want is added topline that’s filled with new programs that we can’t support and afford in the out-years and that doesn’t cover inflation,” she said. “That is my number one concern.”