The military could face a funding “dry hole” after the windfall of Congress’ two-year budget deal runs out in late 2020, Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said on Wednesday.
That could create a challenge for the military to wisely budget and spend the hikes it will get in the $700 billion defense budget this year and the agreed-upon $716 billion budget next year, Frelinghuysen said during a budget hearing with the leaders of the Air Force.
The Air Force, which is the biggest buyer of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, could be saddled by its plans to outfit the aircraft with new high-tech systems and the costs of sustaining it, which the Government Accountability Office has pegged at $1 trillion over the F-35’s 60-year lifespan, he said.
“You’re going to get a flush of money here and you’ll get a flush of money representing, what, $716 billion,” Frelinghuysen said. “After that, you know, anything goes and it could be a relatively dry hole. I’m just hoping, and I’m sure that you’re assuring us, whatever the money that’s coming down the pipeline that it’s going to be well spent because in the future we may not have a caps deal that has embraced, I think rightly, our future defense needs.”
Congress struck the two-year deal on defense and nondefense spending levels last month after numerous stopgap continuing resolutions. It was the third and most recent deal to lift the caps imposed by the Budget Control Act.
Lawmakers are now poised to finally pass defense appropriations for the current year next week and are working on the Pentagon’s request for more flexibility in spending that money. The overdue funding could come nearly six months into the fiscal year, leaving the military just half a year to spend about $240 billion in operations and maintenance money.
“What are you going to do with all of this money, in one case in a relatively short period of time, and then looking toward 2019,” Frelinghuysen said. “What are your priorities? Space dominance is an issue, we have remaking the Air Force, and what has been touched on very lightly, the huge sustainment costs of the F-35.”
The sustainment bill might compete for limited funding with the Air Force’s other priorities, he said. For example, the service says it wants to boost its budget for space operations by 18 percent as threats from Russia and China grow.
“I understand you completely and our job is to get a $1.10 of value out of every dollar that we spend in the Air Force, because somebody earned that dollar,” Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson said.
The service’s budget request for the coming year includes purchasing 48 more F-35s to add to its fleet of 272. Ellen Lord, the Pentagon’s undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, is negotiating with maker Lockheed Martin to reduce the costs of the program, Wilson said.
“The Air Force as the biggest customer has a strong interest in continuing to drive down the cost of sustainment,” she said. “That means negotiating very hard with the suppliers to reduce costs but also to bring in competition.”
