During House Armed Services Committee markup of the fiscal year 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) in June, the majority of House authorizers (42-17) voted for the Golden/Luria amendment to increase the requested defense top line of $773 billion by nearly $37 billion. They then voted 57-1 to approve the entire NDAA, with the increased spending included. So, what exactly would this 57-1 bipartisan increase in authorization buy?
The largest category of increases would go to procurement of equipment and facilities (44.8 percent), followed by further increases to Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation (RDTE) (19.5 percent), and projects suffering from the impacts of inflation (19.3 percent). Interestingly, the Golden/Luria amendment supported 79 Service and Combatant Command Unfunded Priority List (UPL) items.
An analysis of the amendment’s details
illustrates that, as it often does, Congress plans to rescue defense
procurement from a continued priority deficit within the department. Increases
to procurement accounts make up 43 percent, or $15.7 billion of the total added
to the Department’s budget request. The amendment’s priority on procurement
tells us two things. First, Congress does not agree with the Department of
Defense (DoD) strategy of sacrificing procurement in favor of continued
investments in long-term technology development. Second, Congress recognizes
that buying more tanks, ships, and munitions is critical to a robust supply
chain; a point that DoD seems not to understand.
Within the large procurement add, aircraft
and shipbuilding are nearly tied for the largest portions at just under $5
billion each. The House amendment clearly rejects the department’s plan to
shrink the Navy, authorizing three new ships, plus advanced procurement for a
third DDG and another LHA. At the same time, funds are authorized to keep 5 LCS
in operation that were planned for retirement.
The amendment authorizes procurement
of 23 additional aircraft, including eight F/A-18 hornets. Again, the Congress is
messaging to DoD that they are not aligned with the plan to further cut the
capacity of the Air Force.
The amendment piled even more money
into RDTE, particularly for Defense-Wide, which would get $3.7 billion of the
total $7.2 billion added to those accounts. This is particularly interesting to
note because the DoD request for RDTE was already the largest in history. Included
in this increase were typical adds for university and basic research. Some of
the largest increases went to a biotechnical manufacturing institute ($500
million), munitions ($425 million), and ballistic missile defense ($300
million).
Within the readiness accounts, each of
the services would come away with just over $1 billion in O&M for $3.8
billion of the $7.3 billion increase for that account. The next-largest add
goes into the Working Capital Fund ($2.5 billion) to address expected inflation
costs for fuel. The Congress continues to rightly be concerned that the defense
budget request does not properly address inflation.
The amendment also spread $4.3 billion
in military construction adds among the services and components, covering
inflation adjustments for a number of projects ($3.5 billion or 81 percent of
the total add for construction) and authorizing numerous new projects,
including a pricey $375 million Savanah River Plutonium Processing Facility for the Department of
Energy. Again, similar to the operating accounts, Congress had to step in and
adjust the construction accounts for inflation.
From a service perspective, the Navy was the clear winner, with $11.7 billion, or nearly 32 percent, of the total. For the Army, the amendment provides $1 billion in Patriot modifications for four additional fire units to equip the 16th Army Patriot battalion. The Army would also get an increase of close to $525 million for Abrams upgrades. The Abrams add is particularly noteworthy because the Army cut Abrams procurement in the budget, but then included them on their UPL list.
Air Force and Space Force were the clear losers in the amendment add game, with a total of $5.3 billion combined. Still, the Air Force would come away with increases of just over $980 million for the compass call program and $100 million for the Small Diameter Bomb-II.
This month, the full House will debate and vote on the NDAA. It will be interesting to see if more increases are approved and with what level of bi-partisan support. It is likely the Senate Armed Services Committee, which has not publicly released the details of its $45 billion increase to the defense budget, is waiting for some sense from the administration on what a budget deal might look like. Of course, these are the authorizing committees sending an important signal about what constitutes an adequate defense budget top line. Before DoD gets any money, the appropriators will have their say. There are not many legislative days left before the government funding for 2022 expires and a new budget is needed. Now is the time for action so damaging continuing resolutions can be avoided.
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