The former financial leader of the Pentagon warned Wednesday of a “nightmare” scenario if Congress funds the Defense Department through a year-long continuing resolution.
“You can do it for a couple of months, it’s not a big deal. But doing that for a year would be a nightmare for the Department of Defense,” former Pentagon Comptroller Robert Hale said during an event at the Brookings Institution.
The president has threatened to veto Congress’ fiscal 2016 budget for the Pentagon because it uses an emergency war fund to pay for everyday operations that he says should be included in the base budget.
If Congress is unable to reach a budget deal by the end of the fiscal year, Hale said, the next best option is to appropriate funds at the sequestration level, even though top officials have warned those caps will affect unit readiness.
A worse option would be a continuing resolution, which would fund the department at the same level as fiscal 2015, which is actually lower than the sequestration cap for fiscal 2016, Hale said.
He spoke of the damage done during past fiscal turmoil, saying morale among the department took a hit because of budget uncertainty during sequestration. The resulting furloughs and a government shutdown in 2013 that wasted millions of taxpayer dollars, however, hit the civilian population especially hard, he said.
“I think this may be the biggest wound caused by all this budgetary turmoil and one that lingers today,” Hale said.
During the shutdown, civilian employees were told they couldn’t come to work or even access work email, leading many to feel undervalued. Despite that, Congress agreed to dole out $400 million in back pay for those unworked days in waste Hale said he found “discouraging.”
Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., said most members of Congress have not learned their lesson from these ill effects of past budgetary fights and are likely to repeat them this year.
“We don’t seem to have learned anything from it,” he said. “I don’t see us getting a budget by Sept. 30.”
