GOP budget could cancel $630B in defense projects, warn Pentagon leaders.

Dialing Back Spending Could Cost DOD Billions

The Department of Defense (DOD) could face a setback of at least $100 billion next year and more than $630 billion over the next five years if spending is dialed back to Fiscal Year 2022 levels, according to DOD Chief Financial Officer Michael McCord. However, Pentagon officials insist that the costs of fiscal uncertainty on national security are not captured in the 14 percent slash in the military’s $842 billion Fiscal Year 2024 (FY24) budget request that would be enacted under such a “FY22 plus 1 percent” plan.

Budget Impasse Presents Substantial Risk to National Security

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin told the Senate Appropriations Committee’s Defense Subcommittee that the budget impasse between House Republicans and the Biden administration, and the approaching June 1 default deadline on the national debt, presents a “substantial risk to our reputation.” He warned that Congress not coming to an agreement on a FY24 spending plan and on the June 1 debt default deadline would imperil the nation’s reputation as a source of reliability globally, with significant repercussions.

China Could Exploit Budget Discord

Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) noted that the budget impasse feeds into the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) rhetoric that the United States is a “power in decline.” He warned that no-accommodation tactics being touted by House culture war ideologues could turn out to be “one of the greatest strategic errors—vis-à-vis China—in history.” Without a budget, the Pentagon will be funded through a Continuing Resolution (CR) that sustains mandatory operations but short-circuits multi-year projects and programs.

Congress Needs to Step Up

Chair Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) said Congress needs to “get a budget done on time so these guys don’t have to rely on the uncertainty of CRs.” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) agreed that a budget with “a complete appropriations bill” is needed in “countering China.” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) maintains the Pentagon’s proposed FY24 spending plan does not adequately account for inflation and told fellow members of the Senate Appropriations Committee’s Defense Subcommittee on May 11, 2023, “to reject all of this stuff and come up with a number that keeps us safe.”

• The budget impasse could cost the DOD at least $100 billion next year and set back weapons procurement by more than $630 billion over the next five years.
• The budget impasse presents a “substantial risk to our reputation” and could imperil national security.
• China could exploit the budget discord and use it to further its own agenda.
• Congress needs to step up and get a budget done on time to keep the country safe.