Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned lawmakers today that failure to pass a fully funded defense budget for fiscal year (FY) 2025 will damage the Department of Defense’s (DoD) ability to invest in capabilities that help the department meet current defense challenges.
During a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Tuesday, Austin explained that the DoD “relies on a fully funded defense budget” to make the necessary investments to meet those challenges.
Infighting on Capitol Hill led to long-running delays for consideration of a full-year FY 2024 budget, and the FY2024 appropriations passed last month by Congress left the defense agency operating under short-term funding bills based on FY2023 spending levels.
According to Austin, dependence on short-term funding measures damages the Pentagon’s ability to invest in critical programs and capabilities.
“Under continuing resolutions, critical national-security programs are delayed or put on hold and the fiscal uncertainty destabilizes the U.S. economy,” he said. “The only clear path for the United States to maintain our global strength and continue to outpace our rivals is for … Congress to provide full-year appropriations.”
The DoD’s FY 2025 budget request features several big tech-focused funding lines including $17.2 billion for science and technology, $1.8 billion for artificial intelligence, $1.4 billion for combined joint all domain command and control, $450 million for Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve initiative, and $144 million for the Office of Strategic Capital.
The budget request also allocates investments towards “revitalizing and expanding the defense industrial base, ensuring it is prepared to meet production demands required for current and future operations.”
Providing military capabilities at the speed and scale necessary to maintain a competitive advantage “will require cooperation and investment from both the private and public sectors” to build a modern defense industrial base and deliver critical capabilities to warfighters,” the Defense secretary said today.
But “such progress relies on a fully funded defense budget,” Austin said.
Gen. Charles Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified alongside Austin at today’s hearings and echoed his statements. He explained to lawmakers that the “Joint Force can only remain the world’s most capable force” if it is supported by the necessary resources to organize, train, equip, exercise, and employ.
According to Brown, DoD faces setbacks in its operations and mission to “stay ahead of our pacing challenge” when it’s not resourced with an on-time full-year appropriation and funding is delayed due to continued resolution fundings.
“By passing an on-time budget, Congress enables the Department to execute its strategy with a full-year appropriation,” Brown said. “We can only accomplish our mission and maintain our advantage with stable, predictable, and timely budgets.”
