DefenseTech Military.com
  • Categories
  • Full Archives
  • Monthly Archives
  • About Defense Tech
Subscribe to RSS

About Defense Tech

Defense Tech examines the intersection of technology and defense from every angle and provides analysis on what’s ahead.

Tip Us Off

Tip for Defense Tech?

SEND IT!

It’s Confidential!

Categories

  • ‘Canes
  • Af-Cam
  • Afghan Update
  • Ammo and Munitions
  • Armor
  • Around the Globe
  • Av Week Extra
  • Axe in Iraq (and Elsewhere)
  • Bizarro
  • Blimps
  • Blog Bidness
  • Body Armor Blues
  • Bomb Squad
  • Brownshoes in Action
  • Bubbleheads, etc.
  • Cammo Green
  • Catch the “Buzz”
  • Chem-Bio
  • Civilian Apps
  • Cloak and Dagger
  • Commandos
  • Comms
  • Contingency Ops
  • Cops and Robbers
  • Crazy Ivan
  • Cyber-warfare
  • Data Diving
  • Defense Tech Poll
  • Defense Tech Radio
  • Dissent Tech
  • Door Kickers
  • Drones
  • DT Administrivia
  • Eat DT’s Dust
  • Extra! Extra!
  • Eye on China
  • F-35 Watch
  • Fast Movers
  • FCS Watch
  • Fire for Effect
  • FOS Files
  • Friday Funnies
  • Gadgets and Gear
  • Going Green
  • Grand Ole Osprey
  • Ground Vehicles
  • Guns
  • Homeland Security
  • In the Bubble with Joe Buff
  • In the Weeds with Eric
  • Info War
  • Iraq Diary
  • Jarhead Jazz
  • JSF Watch
  • Just War Theories
  • Lasers and Ray Guns
  • Less-lethal
  • Logistics
  • Los Alamos and Labs
  • M4 Monopoly
  • Medic!
  • Mercs
  • Missiles
  • Money Money Money
  • Most Wanted
  • MRAP Edge
  • Net-Centric
  • Nukes
  • Old Skool
  • Our Shrinking Planet
  • PEO Soldier
  • Planes, Copters, Blimps
  • Podcast
  • Politricks
  • Polmar’s Perspective
  • Popular Mechanics
  • Rapid Fire
  • Raptor Watch
  • Red Team
  • Retro-Futuro
  • Robots
  • Roll Your Own
  • Sabra Tech
  • Ships and Subs
  • Snipertech
  • Soldier Systems
  • Space
  • Special Ops
  • Star Wars
  • Strategery
  • Stray Trons
  • Tactical Development
  • Terror Tech
  • The Deadlies
  • The Defense Biz
  • The Peoples’ Site
  • The Sunday Paper
  • The Tanker Tango
  • The View from Av Week
  • Those Nutty Norks
  • Training and Sims
  • Trimble on the Case
  • Uncategorized
  • Video Lounge
  • War Update
  • Ward’z Wonderz
  • You can run…

Archives

  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • September 2009
  • August 2009
  • July 2009
  • June 2009
  • May 2009
  • April 2009
  • March 2009
  • February 2009
  • January 2009
  • December 2008
  • November 2008
  • October 2008
  • September 2008
  • August 2008
  • July 2008
  • June 2008
  • May 2008
  • April 2008
  • March 2008
  • February 2008
  • January 2008
  • December 2007
  • November 2007
  • October 2007
  • September 2007
  • August 2007
  • July 2007
  • June 2007
  • May 2007
  • April 2007
  • March 2007
  • February 2007
  • January 2007
  • December 2006
  • November 2006
  • October 2006
  • September 2006
  • August 2006
  • July 2006
  • June 2006
  • May 2006
  • April 2006
  • March 2006
  • February 2006
  • January 2006
  • December 2005
  • November 2005
  • October 2005
  • September 2005
  • August 2005
  • July 2005
  • June 2005
  • May 2005
  • April 2005
  • March 2005
  • February 2005
  • January 2005
  • December 2004
  • November 2004
  • October 2004
  • September 2004
  • August 2004
  • July 2004
  • June 2004
  • May 2004
  • April 2004
  • March 2004
  • February 2004
  • January 2004
  • December 2003
  • November 2003
  • October 2003
  • September 2003
  • August 2003
  • July 2003
  • June 2003
  • May 2003
  • April 2003
  • March 2003
  • February 2003
  • January 2003

Home » Money Money Money » Defense Budget Duck and Weave

Defense Budget Duck and Weave

rummy_poof.jpgRumsfeld came out and said it: He’s not sacrificing any of his modernization plans just because there’s a war going on.
“We, simply, as an institution, have to not stop doing what we were doing and start doing something new,” he told reporters yesterday, introducing the Defense Department’s budget for fiscal year 2007.
But some analysts aren’t so sure that Rummy is being straight up about how he pays for his new gear. Steven Kosiak, with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, thinks there’s a “significant mismatch” between the Pentagon’s “modernization plans and [its] projected funding levels. The new budget “would do little to improve the affordability.”

Moreover, some of the proposed shifts in priorities such as the accelerated fielding of a new long-range strike aircraft (in 2018 rather than 2037) are likely to be dependent, for their implementation, on the willingness and ability of a future administration to make offsetting cuts in other DoD priorities. The QDR and FY 2007 budget request have, for the most part, deferred these difficult choices.

But that’s not all. In addition to the gazillion dollar excuse me, $439.3 billion main Defense budget, there’s also an extra $120 bill that’s supposed to go to supporting the fights over in Afghanistan and Iraq. Kosiak is pretty sure a big chunk of that cash is going somewhere else. Some of it is going to fund an Army reorganization into smaller, more deployable units. Then there’s this:

In early 2005, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected that sustaining US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan at essentially todays level would require about $85 billion in FY 2006. This suggests that the administrations proposed $120 billion in emergency funding for military operations in FY 2006 may be too high by as $35 billion.

Rummy has pulled this kind of stunt before — dipping into the Army’s payroll, and then forcing Congress to make up the difference in a war-funding bill. But I was half-hoping that this time around, he’d act like a man, and really say how much he was spending on his transformation projects. Oh, well.
UPDATE 02/08/06 11:56 AM: “Many of the spending priorities in President Bush’s proposed $439.3 billion defense budget conflict with the military requirements outlined in a new long-range plan drawn up by Pentagon officials,” Knight-Ridder’s Bob Cox reports.

Once again, experts say, the budget drawn up by the Pentagon’s top civilian and military leader’s calls for massive spending on new high-tech fighter jets, warships and missile defense systems at the expense of bolstering American soldiers’ capability to prevail in the low-tech conflicts they’re now engaged in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The Pentagon’s Quadrennial Defense Review, released Friday, identifies a wide range of problems the military must be prepared to deal with. It calls for enhancing the ability of U.S. forces to conduct a low intensity, “long war” against terrorists in far flung locations, improve the military’s homeland security capabilities, and prepare for a possible all-out with an emerging power like China.
It’s the latter scenario, which the military foresees fighting with F-22 fighter jets and new high-tech warships built by Lockheed Martin, that gets the biggest investment in the 2007 budget Bush submitted to Congress on Monday…
“The words in the QDR don’t seem to bear much resemblance to the numbers in the ‘07 spending request,” said Loren Thompson, chief operating officer of the Lexington Institute defense think tank.

UPDATE 1:16 PM: The new budget kicks the Defense Department’s new laser-based communications satellites to the curb, Reuters notes. The Armchair Generalist looks at the counter-WMD programs. (Here’s some background.) Defense Industry Daily has a massive round-up of budget-related links.
UPDATE 1:28 PM: Despite Sen. Robert Byrd’s observation that the Pentagon’s budget amounts to “$439 for every minute since Jesus Christ was born,” many Senators are worried that Rummy & Co. aren’t spending enough, Defense News reports. Shockingly, that’s particularly true of guys like Joe Lieberman, who have big weapon-building facilities in their states.

Share |

February 7th, 2006 | Money Money Money | 18408 Comments »http://defensetech.org/2006/02/07/defense-budget-duck-and-weave/Defense+Budget+Duck+and+Weave2006-02-07+20%3A59%3A31murdoc You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

« « DHS Budget, Broken Down | Warlocks’ Magic, Everywhere » »

This website uses IntenseDebate comments, but they are not currently loaded because either your browser doesn't support JavaScript, or they didn't load fast enough.

  1. Charles says:
    February 7, 2006 at 7:49 pm

    Something’s gotta go, and maybe it’ll be the F-22 (soon to be superseded by top secret Skunk Works prototype).
    The DoD needs to start shifting more and more jobs to civilians to reduce the amount of government workers, and in the long run, government benefits etc.; and more bases should be consolidated and people let go. Carlton Meyer has (or used to have) a list of possible savings, including some force redeployments, closing of obsolete headquarters and so forth.
    Rumsfeld knows full well it’s easier to get a bigger bucket of water than wring it out of a towel, even one as big and wet as the DoD (of course, around 40% of the DoD’s budget is human resources like payroll and healthcare, which for the moment remains untouchable)

    Reply
  2. d.l. greening says:
    February 8, 2006 at 12:12 am

    what do you expect from our misbegotten chicken hawk republican polititions. if it does not benifit big business and the wealthy, it is not needed or necesary.

    Reply
  3. Murc says:
    February 8, 2006 at 12:44 am

    Charles — 40%!!! are you sure about that…that seems rediculously high.
    And any links or info on the “supposed” top secret jet better then the F-22A
    I’ve never heard that.
    oh and “d.l. greening” — I often wonder if liberals and left wing can even talk without bush bashing spewing our of there ignorant mouths.

    Reply
  4. Charles says:
    February 8, 2006 at 1:05 pm

    Regarding new F-22: If I actually knew about it, it wouldn’t be top secret anymore. During the Cold War Americans didn’t know about the U-2 until it was blasted out of the sky.
    For the DoD number, it appears to be a seriously flawed figure (which I will retract now). In 2003, about 93.9 million out of 365 million of Discretionary Budget Authority (discounting supplementals) went to personnel. Emergency and Non-Emergency Supplementals is the 72 million that Kerry “voted for before [he] voted against it”. The calculation pegs the 2003 figure as only 25%.
    http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2005/defense.htmlhttp://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2005/defense.html

    Reply
  5. Byron Skinner says:
    February 8, 2006 at 3:30 pm

    Good Afternoon Folks,
    Nothing like the fiction of a QDR to lively things up a little. A few items not quite mentioned but should be.
    The Navy currently has a fleet of 261 ship according to non-pentagon sources not the 281 the CNO Mullens claim to have. Of course there could be a ghost fleet some where, but I doubt it.
    I think the Admiral is just repeating what he has been scripted for and didn’t bother to count ships. When interested parties finally get around to counting boats and the Admiral come up short he can always plead he was just following orders. After all we know that CNO’s are not paid to count boats.
    To expand the U.S. Navy to 315 ships with only a net gain of two ships a year, Admiral Mullens figures, none of us will be around to see 315 ships again. That is unless you count the “Rubber Duckie” Zodiacs as comissioned ships of the U.S. Navy.
    DD51’s are being build at a pace that the last one will yet to be build when the first of the class is being retired from service. The net loss to the submarine fleet of new boats vs. boats retired is such that by 2020 the U.S. will have no submarines.
    An interesting point regarding submarines is that right now there is no “next generation” of submarines in the drawing and design stage of development. That is a first since the Navy started buying submarines with the U.S.S. Holland.
    Found out why the big rush for the F-22. The F-15’s are no longer considered by the USAF to be combat capable. The reason being “…cracks and metal fatigue, they are flown only under speed restrictions for fear of losing their vertical fins…” It appears that this “problem” shows up after about fifteen years of service, the average age of an F-15C is now eighteen years old.
    The F-15 will still be ok to bring down and air liner now and then though.
    The fix is known but is way to expensive, the problem is a design flaw not really material weakness. To fix the problem the back half of the airframe would have to be rebuilt. The hedge right now is the current budget has been to reopened the F-15 line in St. Louis and to keep it open till at least 2009, all depending on the F-22 buys.
    So the next time we read where two Euro Fighters jumping a couple of F-15’s and bettering them we have a reason or when the Indian build SU-27’s kick F-15 bu** again.
    The U.S. Army is so confident in the FCS that it spent almost a $100Million last calender year to reopen the Abrams and Bradley lines and the current budget includes 100 more Strykers, you know the Interm Fughting Vehicle. To pay for all this the administration wants to cut another 30K troops from the Army.
    A future Army might look like a motor pool full of new Armored Vehicles but no soldiers to crew them.
    Is this a great country or what?
    ALLONS,
    Byron Skinner

    Reply
  6. Charles says:
    February 8, 2006 at 8:35 pm

    Yay, a overmechanized force. I can see the motive behind the push for robots.
    It’s difficult to see the need for new equipment in time of peace and when you’re a superpower, but history tells tales of woe, of those who were armed with tankettes when the enemy had panzers. Or people who expected to fight in static war when they got hit with blitz war (and lost with better equipment).
    Rummy was going to “skip the next generation” and go with the next-next generation of gear. That was fine with most of us. It is unlikely that we are going to war against a major power anytime soon, so it would seem fruitless to keep having four of every class of new generation of ship.
    For example is our sub force. We have a bunch of LA class. Then SeaWolf during the Cold War, program terminating with…what was it, two subs? Then the Virginia, terminating with a unknown number of ships. It is silly to increment so quickly and have so few of each ship, when we should be testing technologies and then building en masse once we are, quote, “ready”. Otherwise funding every generation of military system would give us a jalopy of weapons of varying “Generation” cycle.

    Reply
  7. jtw says:
    February 11, 2006 at 8:54 pm

    I would like to see their justification for all of this money. I would like to see the rundown of how each dollar is spent.
    I think we are going on 300+ billion for the war in Iraq. I would like to see how that money was spent.
    Example:
    10 billion for small arms and ammunition.
    40 billion for total air transport flights — 111,000 total flights.
    30 billion for sea transport operations — 2500 total transports.
    15 billion for rockets.
    9 billion for guided missiles.
    And then an average cost per item. If you spent 9 billion on guided missiles and you have exhausted 4000 missiles in operation, what is the total cost of each weapon.
    I would really like some insight into all of this because to me it seems like a conspiracy and all of this money is getting dumped somewhere. Or we are way overcharging ourselves and someone is making massive PROFIT.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Click here to cancel reply.

Spam Protection by WP-SpamFree

NOTE: Comments are limited to 2500 characters and spaces.

By commenting on this topic you agree to the terms and conditions of our User Agreement

    Recent Articles
    • JSF Price Tag Jumps to $135 Million
    • EADS Tanker, Not Dead Yet
    • JFCOM’s Mattis Pushes Light IW Aircraft
    • And, the Vertical Landing
    • NLOS-LS Missile Fail Could Impact Navy’s LCS
    • JFCOM’s JOE Whacks Defense Industry
    • New F-35B Hover Video
    • China’s Shipbuilding in a Regional Context
    • Debating the Pros and Cons of LCS
    • Bigger, Badder IEDs in Afghanistan
    Recent Comments
    • Petraeus to SASC Today; Israel-Palestine to Come Up? (Updated)
      of course it will be a...
      Roy M Brown
    • JSF Price Tag Jumps to $135 Million
      Lets see what happens when the Russian T-50 or what ever...
      Pete
    • JFCOM’s Mattis Pushes Light IW Aircraft
      The AF could put T-6s in service for A-stan in a...
      lcdr_kent
    • JSF Price Tag Jumps to $135 Million
      It is necessary to limit excess profits of military...
      Dmitry
    • JSF Price Tag Jumps to $135 Million
      Oh my god, scrap the entire thing already!
      MPY
    • Debating the Pros and Cons of LCS
      The PT boats were specifically designed for littoral...
      PolicyWonk
    • JFCOM’s Mattis Pushes Light IW Aircraft
      Blah, Blah, Blah They've been talking about this...
      Tim
    • Life Can Go On — JLTV Protest Denied
      are any of yall even in the army or marines...
      ARMY SPC
    • Russia’s Sneaky Missile: Details Here
      russia hydrofoil-carrier :...
      hydrofoil
    • Petraeus to SASC Today; Israel-Palestine to Come Up? (Updated)
      No problem if US with Obama...
      landouzy
  • Channels:Military.com | Military Benefits | Military News | Off Duty |Join the Military | Military Education | Veteran Jobs | Military Money |Military Deals | Military Family | Military Community
  • Military.com Network:Military.com | MilBlogging | Defense Tech | DoD Buzz |SpouseBuzz | Fred's Place | GI Bill Express
  • Services: Army | Navy | Air Force | Marine Corps |Coast Guard | National Guard | Military Spouse
  • About Military.com About Us | Advertise With Us | Press | Affiliate Program |Monster Network | Help | Feedback | Privacy Policy |User Agreement| © 2010 Military Advantage