{"id":1702028,"date":"2022-10-19T06:30:12","date_gmt":"2022-10-19T10:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1702028"},"modified":"2022-10-19T07:48:18","modified_gmt":"2022-10-19T11:48:18","slug":"congress-is-leaving-defense-department-hanging","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/congress-is-leaving-defense-department-hanging\/","title":{"rendered":"Congress Is Leaving Defense Department Hanging"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">12<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fcongress-is-leaving-defense-department-hanging%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1702028&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Budget Matters: Congress Leaves Defense Department Hanging    <\/p>\n<p class=\"photo-credit\">iStock photo-illustration<\/p>\n<p>During the spring and summer, there was a common refrain coming from the hawks on the Hill: the president\u2019s fiscal year 2023 budget proposal short-changed national security. The $773 billion request for the Defense Department \u2014 $813 billion total for national defense \u2014 simply would not cut it in the current environment.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am very concerned that this budget would result in real cuts in defense spending at exactly the wrong time,\u201d said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, during a May 3 hearing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn a fiscal environment with 8.5 percent inflation, the department\u2019s budget request equates to a cut to our national defense at a time of unprecedented security risks,\u201d said Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., at the same hearing.<\/p>\n<p>Similar concerns were raised in the House about the request, which was a 4 percent increase above enacted 2022 funding.<\/p>\n<p>Both chambers walked their talk when drafting versions of the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act. The House bill, passed in July, added $37 billion to the White House proposal, and the Senate Armed Services Committee mark added $45 billion.<\/p>\n<p>In a statement about the SASC\u2019s passage of the 2023 NDAA, Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., stated that Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine and worldwide inflation required the committee to increase defense funding.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis year\u2019s markup advances U.S. military capabilities in response to China and Russia,\u201d he said. \u201cIt targets research-and-development investments that will give our forces major advantages.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Since then\u2026 crickets.<\/p>\n<p>In September, the National Defense Industrial Association issued a white paper warning Congress that since 2021, inflation has eaten up $50 billion in Pentagon purchasing power. The lack of real growth in defense spending has also resulted in a $110 billion execution loss. <\/p>\n<p>Yet, the full Senate did not vote on the draft NDAA before the end of the fiscal year, and Congress failed to pass any spending bills before Sept. 30.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, Congress once again resorted to a continuing resolution to keep the government funded until Dec. 16.<\/p>\n<p>That resolution meant that the Defense Department started fiscal year 2023 with the same funding as 2022, and no adjustment for the roughly 9 percent inflation since the beginning of fiscal year 2022.<\/p>\n<p>The resolution expressly prohibits new starts, production increases or \u201cthe initiation, resumption, or continuation of any project, activity, operation, or organization \u2026 for which appropriations, funds, or other authority were not available during fiscal year 2022.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>One program caught up in this is the Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve, which is designed to take promising prototypes and run them through practical experimentation to validate and transition to production. The program received $35 million in initial funding in 2022, and the Pentagon was seeking $358 million for 2023, which is supposed to be the program\u2019s first full year of operation.<\/p>\n<p><em>National Defense<\/em> asked the Pentagon how the reserve would move forward and for examples of programs and initiatives stalled by the continuing resolution. The response was a pithy but clear, diplomatic message to the Hill.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUnder a CR we cannot start new initiatives, including<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Budget Matters: Congress Leaves Defense Department Hanging iStock photo-illustration During the spring and summer, there was a common refrain coming from the hawks on the Hill: the president\u2019s fiscal year 2023 budget proposal short-changed national security. The $773 billion request for the Defense Department \u2014 $813 billion total for national defense \u2014 simply would not &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1898681,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[547],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1702028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-bongino-report"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1702028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1702028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1702028\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1898681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1702028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1702028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1702028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}