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The Air Force had previously predicted it would be fully ready for high-end conflict by 2025. That date keeps slipping because its pilots and planes are busy in the Middle East.
Defense Secretary Ash Carter says the Obama administration's final Pentagon budget represents a turning point; high-end technologies will get more attention.
Despite lower funding levels, Defense leaders count their blessings with two years of budget certainty.
Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, former Defense Secretary Robert Gates acknowledged the rationale for reforms which centralized big decisions within the DoD acquisition system.
Congressional leaders are calling for bipartisan efforts to raise spending caps, to keep Defense funded and also provide government services that so many Americans rely on for education, health and employment.
The sequestration cuts that began in 2013 weren't just detrimental to federal agency missions, they harmed the economy to boot, said Ben Bernanke, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve. He said even though long-term deficits are a problem, short-term federal spending cuts aren’t the answer.
Gen. Ray Odierno, the departing Army chief, said he’s worried about the service because most U.S. forces are underprepared for some of the circumstances they might face, such as “hybrid” warfare against Russian proxies.
Gen. Mark Milley said at his confirmation hearing to become the new Army chief of staff that his service still could meet the demand signal for Army forces, despite recent budget cuts. That could change, though, if demands continue to increase and if budgets continue to decrease.
With or without sequestration, the Pentagon has concluded there is not enough money to go around, and if it’s going to continue to perform its most vital national security tasks, some missions will have to be on the chopping block beginning in 2017.
Nearly a quarter of the military's facilities are rated as in "poor" condition; another 7 percent are failing. Officials say their 2016 budget would begin to dig out of billions of dollars in backlogged maintenance needs.
The Obama administration already has made clear that it will request a budget Monday which violates the automatic spending caps in existing law. But for DoD, the war accounts, which are exempt from the caps, may serve as a backup plan.
The Army says it is now replacing funds in its readiness accounts that were depleted when cuts under sequestration first kicked in a year ago. But last year's readiness problems are likely to repeat in 2016 and beyond if Congress allows the automatic Defense cuts in current law to persist.
On this week's Capital Impact show, Bloomberg Government analysts discuss cuts made by Congress to the defense budget, and the winners and losers in this budget battle. January 23, 2014
Pentagon Comptroller Robert Hale told In Depth with Francis Rose Friday the Defense Department will not be cutting any more furlough days for Fiscal 2013. Now, DoD is waiting for Congress to finish marking up the president's budget request. If it fails to do that before Oct. 1, Hale said his agency may be forced to trim $52 billion from next year's budget to offset automatic cuts from the Budget Control Act.