With government funding set to expire April 28, the nation’s military chiefs are warning that even a basic extension of government funding at last year’s levels would be detrimental to the Armed Forces’ capabilities.
Ahead of a House Armed Services Committee hearing on Wednesday that will feature testimony from Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps officials, the Foreign Policy Initiative has a roundup of some of the most significant warnings:
The Navy will have to ground four of its nine carrier air wings for the remainder of the year, while delaying or cancelling critical repairs on 14 ships. From July forward, Marine Corps units in the U.S. will cease all flight operations. Army brigades scheduled for deployment to Korea and Europe will stop all meaningful training as of July 15. Already short of pilots and mechanics, the Air Force will not be able to add the 2,000 new Airmen authorized by the most recent National Defense Authorization Act. Now that a single party holds the White House as well as majorities in both houses of Congress, there is no excuse for failure to provide regular appropriations. Regrettably, it has become customary to begin each fiscal year with a temporary CR; not since 1997 has Congress passed a full set of appropriations bill before October 1. Yet in that time, there has never been a full-year CR when the same party controlled both the executive and the legislature.
Full year defense appropriations are stalled in Congress, despite being passed out of the House on a broadly bipartisan basis last month.
More from the FPI here.
