The fiscal year 2024 Defense Appropriations bill unveiled by the House and Senate Appropriations committees on March 21 boosts defense funding from FY2023 levels but largely splits the difference between last year’s budget and the total that the Biden administration had proposed for the current fiscal year.
The FY2024 defense spending bill – released as one of six appropriations measures to fund 70 percent of government operations past a deadline of midnight on Friday when previous funding expires – came in at $825 billion. That marks an increase of $27 billion from FY2023, but falls almost $20 billion short from the $842 billion requested by the administration.
The House voted to approve the spending package today sending it to the Senate floor for a vote. The Senate is expected to approve the measure, but had not begun to vote by our late afternoon news deadline on Friday.
Senator Jon Tester, D-Mont., Chair of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, noted in a written statement that the proposed defense budget “will invest in our ability to stay ahead of the threat of China, defend our country from foreign adversaries while standing firm with America’s allies, and take care of our service members and their families.”
“I urge my colleagues to get our defense budget across the finish line without delay so that our military has the tools they need to keep America the greatest country in the world,” the senator said.
Big Ticket Item: DIU
The big winner in the F2024 defense spending bill is innovation.
The bill provides $946 million to the DoD’s Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) — established in 2015 in Silicon Valley to serve as a bridge between the Defense Department (DoD) and the commercial tech sector. The proposed funding — an increase of $842 million above the budget request — would ensure that DIU accelerates DoD’s investments in innovative and commercial technologies to warfighter.
The defense budget also includes $200 million to the department’s newest effort, Replicator, supporting the development and deployment of attributable and autonomous systems.
The Replicator initiative – which was announced in August 2023 by Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks and is overseen by DIU – aims to field thousands of innovative systems across multiple domains and into the hands of warfighters within the next 18 to 24 months, as part of the Pentagon’s strategy to counter China’s rapid armed forces buildup.
Hicks announced earlier this month that the Pentagon has requested a total of $1 billion between the 2024-2025 time frame for the Replicator program, with $500 million in spending proposed for both FY 2024 and 2025.
When the department delivered its FY 2024 budget request to Congress last year, it hadn’t unveiled Replicator yet. The current budget does not provide the full $500 million the Department wants for FY 2024. However, the Pentagon, in a classified request to Congress last month, did request an additional $300 million for Replicator.
The Office of Strategic Capital is provided with budget authority for over $900 million in loans to companies that can scale to further support the defense industrial base. The bill also includes safeguards to ensure that loans and loan guarantees are only provided to companies with a strong financial track record, protecting the interest of the taxpayer.
Space Force Sees Budget Cut in FY 2024
The U.S. Space Force is getting approximately $29 billion in funding, about $1 billion less than the $30 billion originally requested.
Specifically, the Space Force’s procurement request was reduced from $4.6 billion to $4 billion, and the service’s research, development, testing, and engineering budget request was decreased from $19 billion to $18.6 billion.
While Congress did cut the Space Force’s budget for FY2024, it’s still roughly $2.7 billion more than what was approved in the service branch’s FY2023 budget.
Pay Raise for Service Members, Civilian Workforce
The bill also fully funds the requested 5.2 percent pay raise for service members, the largest increase since a 6.9 percent pay raise in 2002. DoD’s civilian workforce would also get a 5.2 percent pay raise.
Investments in AI, Future Tech
The bill also shows a continued support for investment in artificial intelligence (AI) and other future tech by the DoD.
On the adoption of AI, the bill will provide the DoD with more than $100 million, including $10 million to accelerate the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer’s investments in autonomy.
The bill also increases funding for the Joint All-Domain Command and Control to $343 million. The bill also requires that the department submit to Congress a plan for current and future investments in AI.
For other science and technology funding by the Department the bill includes $21.43 billion —$3.6 billion above the budget request.
The bill also provides $770 million above the budget request for basic science research; the Defense University Research Instrumentation Program; science, technology, engineering, and mathematics research; and alternative and operational energy research to invest future tech.
