Joint Chiefs chairman warns Congress lack of full-year spending invoice may add to recruiting woes
Punting on making an attempt to move a full 12 months’s appropriations invoice will undercut U.S. safety strikes in Asia and harm navy recruiting when the providers are struggling to persuade sufficient folks to enlist, America’s prime normal advised lawmakers this week.
General CQ Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, advised the Senate Appropriations Committee {that a} year-long persevering with decision — primarily re-passing the earlier fiscal 12 months’s spending totals with none changes — would create a $5.8 billion shortfall in navy personnel funding and exacerbate the Pentagon’s recruiting woes.
The Department of Defense “would be forced to delay service member moves and slow recruiting to offset the costs of the 5.2% pay raise for the military,” Gen. Brown wrote in his letter.
A seamless decision, recognized in Congress as a CR, extends the earlier 12 months’s funding ranges but in addition would forestall any new applications from beginning. The Defense Department has by no means operated underneath a year-long CR and Gen. Brown mentioned such a transfer can be “historically costly” to the nation’s armed providers.
“A year-long CR would prevent the [Defense Department] from executing numerous multi-year procurement contracts that are critical to meeting our requirements in the Indo-Pacific,” Gen. Brown mentioned. “We cannot outpace our pacing challenge while under a CR.”
Gen. Brown has backing from some senior leaders on Capitol Hill, together with Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the highest Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee. On Wednesday, she took to the Senate ground to press her colleagues to not accept a unbroken decision to fund the Pentagon.
She mentioned essential nationwide safety investments stay on maintain on daily basis that the Defense Department is compelled to function underneath an outdated spending blueprint.
The Defense Department “has identified more than 330 new programs or production increases that cannot proceed,” Ms.. Collins mentioned. “This includes more than a dozen high-priority initiatives identified by the Air Force, $6 billion in Army transformation efforts, and multi-year procurement authority for Virginia-class submarines.”
A year-long CR may additionally have an effect on modernization efforts for the nation’s nuclear triad, together with a delay within the procurement of the B-21 Raider bomber, and would delay ship depot upkeep availability, Gen. Brown wrote.
The 2024 National Defense Authorization Act helps a complete of $886 billion for nationwide protection — $845 billion for the Pentagon and $32 billion for nationwide safety applications that fall throughout the Department of Energy.
“Under a year-long CR, [the Defense Department] could not award multi-year procurement contracts to increase production capacity or replenish inventories for munitions critical to [the Indo-Pacific region], including long-range anti-ship missiles, [precision rockets], Patriot air defense missiles, and a long-range version of the joint air-to-surface standoff missile,” Gen. Brown wrote.
A seamless decision additionally would harm the standard of life for the nation’s navy personnel, comparable to failing to totally fund an enlargement of pre-kindergarten applications for greater than 4,000 youngsters of service members and bettering residing circumstances for sailors aboard ships, Ms. Collins mentioned.
“Our nation’s security and our servicemen and women deserve better than a year-long CR,” she mentioned.
