The Pentagon is finally poised for a spending hike in March that could bankroll increased troop training and equipment maintenance, but the wrangling on Capitol Hill has delayed its annual budget by more than five months.
Now, military leaders worry they might not have enough time in the remaining months of the fiscal year to spend all their extra cash.
Army Secretary Mark Esper said he has been meeting with members of Congress about relaxing a Sept. 30 deadline for using its annual operations and maintenance funds, an account that is about 40 percent of the total Pentagon budget.
“Allow me to spend O&M money for more than one fiscal year. Allow me to spend it for two fiscal years, that way I can smooth that curve out,” Esper said on Thursday. “I can make better use of the taxpayers’ dollars, I can ensure more soldiers are trained and well-trained, and I think overall we can deliver a much better product.”
Congress struck a two-year budget deal this month that would increase defense spending this fiscal year and next, and lawmakers expect to finally pass appropriations legislation by March 23 to set a funding level for the Pentagon and its O&M fund. The approved topline for national defense funding this fiscal year is $700 billion, well above the spending caps set by the Budget Control Act.
A hike in that pot of money could be key to fixing what the military and Congress have warned for years is a readiness crisis by making sure troops, as well as their aircraft, ships, and weapons systems, are better prepared for war.
The Pentagon is on its fifth continuing resolution since the fiscal year began, which locks in spending rates at last year’s levels. Once the full spending increase is approved, the military could be under pressure to quickly spend billions of dollars in new funding by the end of September, which is the last day of the fiscal year.
The 2017 budget for O&M was $253 billion, and the Trump administration has requested a $19.6 billion increase, according to the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.
“We have a year’s worth of money adds in ’18 and five months to spend it. It might help if the appropriators can give us some flexibility so we can spend ’18 money in ’19 and feather in the plan and give us some authorities to … move money around where we’re executing,” Gen. Glenn Walters, the assistant Marine Corps commandant, told the Senate Armed Services Committee last week.
Capitol Hill appropriators are now working on an omnibus bill that would fund the Pentagon and the rest of the federal government.
Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., a member of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, said new flexibility for spending the money will be part of the deliberations on the bill.
“Hopefully, people have been planning for this kind of plus-up, but you don’t want to just flush money through the system,” Cole said. “You’re really going to have to sit down with the Pentagon and talk about OK, this is for a year, you’re going to have six months.”
Other portions of the Pentagon budget, such as procurement of aircraft and ships, will also be key as the Trump administration and the military look toward a buildup.
But that money faces different and longer deadlines, and are not threatened by the dwindling fiscal year.
“A lot of it was acquisition, if you are building a new ship or something like that, it’s not a big problem,” Cole said.
