The Biden-Harris administration on March 11 submitted to Congress its proposed fiscal year (FY) 2025 budget request of $849.8 billion for the Defense Department (DoD), with integrated deterrence, campaigning, and building upon the military’s enduring advantages as top-line items.
“[The] FY 2025 defense budget request … would build on and advance generational military investments we’ve put in motion over the past several years,” Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks told reporters on Monday during a live Pentagon press briefing.
“For the fourth year in a row, our budget furthers our goals to defend the nation, take care of our people, and succeed through teamwork” she added.
Tech, Workforce Investments
According to the DoD, the budget request would enable the department to invest in capabilities to maintain a ready, lethal, and combat-credible joint force, with a laser focus on the pacing challenge from China, as well as the acute threat posed by Russia.
The proposed spending had 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 also includes $33.7 billion for “vital space capabilities” and $14.5 billion for cyberspace activities.
The FY 2025 budget proposal also includes a strong focus on the economic stability of service members and civilian workforce. It would provide a 4.5 percent pay raise for service members that builds on raises for the past three years in a row. Civilian DoD workers would be in line to receive a two percent pay raise.
In addition, Hicks explained that the DoD’s Replicator program is set to receive $1 billion between 2024-2025 time frame, with $500 million in spending proposed for both FY 2024 and 2025.
“That’s the sum of what we anticipate … It’s largely about reducing barriers inside our system in a process that the Vice Chairman [of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Christopher Grady] and I run,” Hicks said.
But obviously, there are dollars associated with getting the actual thousands on the 18-to-24-month timeline out the door,” Hicks said. “It is my fervent view that follow-on to that is a significant investment potential that is not about Replicator, that is about what the services are going to be able to do on autonomy once we’re able to lower those barriers through that initial investment.”
At Hicks’ direction, the department is remaining silent about which platforms it selected for the first tranche of Replicator, and as of now will not detail which ones have been selected or provide a line item in the budget request.
Additional insights into DoD’s FY25 spending proposal will emerge over the coming days and weeks as more documents are released, and as officials make their way to Capitol Hill to testify before lawmakers.
Chaos on Capitol Hill Results in Budget Uncertainty
However, the Pentagon is sailing into unprecedented waters as it delivered its FY2025 budget to Congress, while still awaiting approval of its previous budget request for the remainder of FY2024, which ends on September 30.
While crafting the request, the Biden administration has had several constraints, the most pressing being infighting and spending approval delays on the Hill. While the number detailed in the budget request provides insight into the priorities for the Department, the final outcome is dependent on Congress.
Lawmakers have yet to pass an FY 2024 defense spending bill. Since the beginning of FY 2024 on Oct. 1, 2023, the DoD — and other Federal agencies — have been operating on a string of continuing resolutions (CR) that maintain funding at FY23 levels.
“The department has no way around that reality. Instead, we have been strapped with a series of continuing resolutions,” Hick said. “[CRs] are a significant constraint on our ability to advance our defense strategy, forcing the department to operate with one hand tied behind our back for months out of the year.”
“We need Congress to come together … We must continue to make progress critical to projecting power and protecting our people,” Hicks said.
In addition, the administration is working within the budget caps lawmakers approved when they passed the Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA) of 2023. The FRA caps the DoD’s budget to a one percent increase over the FY 2024 level.
Factoring in inflation, department leaders were also forced to trim $10 billion dollars from the previous year’s plan.
“It is an increase over last year [but] it is not enough of an increase to cover inflation and that, again, would presumably not have been a surprise to anybody who drafted the caps or voted for the caps in the FRA: inflation has to come down quite a bit, but it hasn’t come down to 1 percent, so there will be an issue there,” Undersecretary of Defense Comptroller and Chief Financial Officer Michael J. McCord told reporters on Monday.
