All four fiscal year 2023 defense bills are written and sitting in various stages of the legislative process during this August recess.

The House-passed National Defense Authorization bill added $37 billion to the president’s budget (PB) request of $773 billion for defense on a strong bipartisan vote of 329-101. The Senate Armed Services Committee went further, adding $45 billion to the request with particular attention to inflationary impacts.

The House appropriators have again marginalized themselves by producing a partisan bill at the PB level with questionable priorities. The Senate Appropriations Committee released a draft just before the start of the August break.

Following are four highlights from the Senate draft.

First, the Senate mark, which has not yet passed through committee, set the probable negotiating floor for the defense top line at $30 billion above the request. 

Second, among the strategic-level priorities summarized at the beginning of the report that accompanies the bill, the committee notes that, though it supports the ongoing work of the Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE) Commission, it sees no evidence that recently proposed funds designed to increase speed and flexibility are justified or effective. Throughout the report, the committee alternates between complimenting the department for attempting to address barriers to modernization and criticizing the lack of planning, accountability, and justification that accompanies requests for initiatives such as the Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve Fund. The committee notes that: “. . . experimentation and innovation absent defined program goals merely widen the ‘‘valley of death’’ instead of addressing core programmatic and processes challenges inside the Department.”

Third, like the House, the Senate cuts the military personnel account, reflecting an expectation that the department will not meet its recruiting goals so will not need funding for a force of the size used for budget estimates.  

Unlike the House, the Senate did not cut but instead increased operations and maintenance (O&M) and procurement, two accounts that are already underfunded in the PB.

Though the overall net increase provided by the Senate for O&M is $4.38 billion over the requested amount, there are plenty of marks and undistributed cuts and increases within the account. For example, in the active accounts the Senate committee cut over $1.5 billion from 48 lines for “unjustified growth and what it called “program decrease unaccounted for” signaling that they do not believe requested budgets match programmatic content and descriptions. The draft further cuts O&M with undistributed reductions of $560 million for these same two stated reasons. Though it is not clear how such cuts are justified when not connected to a specific program line. Finally, the committee provides undistributed increases totaling close to $2 billion for inflation on utility costs, supplies, and materials.

The Senate committee also added a much-needed $11.7 billion to the procurement accounts. The biggest winner in this area is Navy Shipbuilding, with an increase of $4 billion for another DDG-51, two more expeditionary medical ships, additional ship-to-shore connectors, and advance procurement of amphibious ships among other things. The Air Force comes in second place with $2.2 billion for Aircraft, followed by the perpetual $1.5 billion add for National Guard equipment and $1.2 billion each for Army (weapons and tracked vehicles) and Navy (aircraft).

Fourth, the Senate adds over $4.7 billion to the already healthy Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation accounts and then fails to avoid the temptation of loading the defense bill with spending not related to military capability. For example, it adds to already robust budgets for medical research (+$1.2 billion).

Action on the defense bills is a good start to supporting the nation’s military and security with the authorizations and appropriations needed, while also taking steps to address the current insufficiency of the defense top line and the realities of inflation. 

But, Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Jon Tester captured the most important task ahead in supporting the nation’s warfighters when, upon the release of his committee’s draft, he said: “Passing a budget on time is one of our best tools to fight inflation, so it’s critical that Congress gets this done quickly and avoids a continuing resolution, which would undermine our military and national security at a time when the world is looking to America for steadfast leadership.”

The pre-recess momentum to get the defense bills moving is commendable. But, the clock is ticking. Only 18 legislative days remain between when the Senate is scheduled to return from the August state work period and the start of the new fiscal year on October 1. Will Congress—and the administration—again sit on their hands and allow another series of continuing resolutions that will squander the work done to date and waste up to $207 million/day in lost buying power? The nation’s security, defense industry, taxpayers, and warfighters will pay the price.

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