Defense Secretary Ash Carter delivered a stern warning to Congress not to shift money from a war-funding account to pay for other Pentagon programs, calling the idea “gambling with warfighting money at a time of war.”
Carter, testifying before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, was referring to a House committee proposal to maintain the $610 billion topline but shift some $18 billion from the overseas contingency operations, or OCO, account to fund other priorities in order to get around limits in the Budget Control Act. Sequester spending caps cover only the baseline budget, not war spending.
That, Carter said, would force the Pentagon to fund programs it didn’t ask for and doesn’t want.
“It would spend money on things that are not DoD’s highest unfunded priorities across the joint force. It buys force structure without the money to sustain it and keep it ready, effectively creating a hollow force structure, and working against our efforts to restore readiness,” Carter said in his opening remarks on the Pentagon’s fiscal year 2017 budget request.
Carter acknowledged the proposal might have little chance of becoming law, but denounced it nevertheless as “another road to nowhere” with “a high probability of leading to more gridlock and another continuing resolution.”
Carter praised last year’s budget deal, which still gave the Pentagon $11 billion less than it requested, but he added that has been accounted for in this year’s budget.
“The budget deal was a good deal – it gave us stability,” he testified.
