Bipartisan leaders of the House and Senate Appropriations committees meet today to seek agreement on extending a continuing resolution to fund the federal government, and with it, the Pentagon, for another month. An existing stopgap resolution to fund the government at last year’s level will expire next week.
The lack of a confirmed federal budget has repercussions for the Pentagon, which cannot tap into the $22 billion added to the defense budget for fiscal year 2020.
“Despite the laudable efforts of some members of Congress who want to keep faith with service members, Congress may extend [the CR] to February or even to the end of the full fiscal year,” writes Bradley Bowman, an analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “Such a move would represent a self-inflicted wound to national security.”
Defense Secretary Mark Esper has been working on his own spending reviews, aiming to finding billions of dollars that can be redirected next year to more effectively implement the National Defense Strategy.
“My focus is to free up dollars for F.Y. ’21 for our budget,” Esper told reporters traveling with him to New York. “And come January, we’re going to start a different approach where we’ve got to do much more of a blank-sheet approach. All of the services need to go through this so we can focus on the National Defense Strategy and get rid of legacy programs and activities, and pivot toward the future.”
Progress on a new $1.4 trillion spending bill so far has been hindered by the failure to resolve deep differences over President Trump’s use of military construction funds to pay for U.S.-Mexico border barriers, as well as immigrant detention policies.
Jamie McIntyre is the Washington Examiner‘s senior writer on defense and national security. His morning newsletter, “Jamie McIntyre’s Daily on Defense,” is free and available by email subscription at dailyondefense.com.
