President’s Budget Request Goes to Congress
President Bush sent his $481.4 billion defense budget for fiscal 2008 to Congress this week. Accompanying the defense budget was a $93.4 billion emergency supplemental funding request to cover equipment reconstitution and the cost of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan for the remainder of fiscal 2007 and a $141.7 billion Global War on Terror (GWOT) request to fund urgent needs associated with the war on terror for fiscal 2008
The Army’s portion of the base budget is $130.1 billion. It seeks an additional $45 billion in the fiscal 2007 emergency supplemental and $83.4 billion in the GWOT request.
The $45 billion includes adding 21,500 soldiers and Marines for the “troop surge” but does not request money for the coming fiscal year for this effort.
The emergency supplemental for 2007 would also accelerate the fielding of two Army brigade combat teams and begin building the infrastructure the larger Army will need, as well as equipping them.
The request includes:
--a three percent pay raise for both soldiers and Department of the Army civilians;
--an increase in military construction spending from $2.7 billion to $4.6 billion;
--$1.2 billion on spending for Army family housing (a $100 million decrease)
--$4.1 billion for Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC), an increase of $500 million; and,
--$3.7 billion for the Future Combat Systems, an increase of $300 million over this year.
The request "will make the necessary and strategic investments" to modernize, recapitalize, sustain and reset the force, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in the budget roll-out briefing.
"Since 1993, when I last served in government, the defense budget actually has taken a smaller relative share of our national wealth, while the world has gotten more complicated and arguably more dangerous," Secretary Gates said. Defense spending "should be at a level to adequately meet the challenges" now confronting the United States, he added.
An editorial in today’s Washington Post bolsters Secretary Gates’ statement. It reads in part, “As a share of the U.S. economy, defense spending was at a near-historic low before Sept. 11, 2001, and even if Mr. Bush's new budget is fully funded, it will still be well below the average over the past century. Defense spending is now just under 4 percent of gross domestic product, compared with 9.5 percent during Vietnam; the Reagan-era buildup took a 50 percent larger piece of national output.”
“The reality that the budget reflects is that U.S. defense spending will have to return in the years ahead to its historic level of 5 percent of GDP -- at least -- and remain there for some time. That's because the American role in heading off threats in an increasingly disorderly world will not change soon, and because the military faces the need to replace aging tanks, planes and ships with 21st-century systems. If anything, the new budget low-balls the numbers. Nothing has been budgeted to pay for the current "surge" of Iraq forces beyond the end of September, and only $50 billion is in the budget projections for war spending in 2009.”
The request for the base budget represents an eight percent increase in defense spending with figures adjusted for inflation. The Army’s share of the overall budget request is slightly more than 27 percent.
Nelson Ford, who oversees the Army budget, said that including estimates and justification for expected expenses in the global war on terrorism, “responds to some of the criticism [in Congress] of not being able to understand the whole picture.”
Additionally, in releasing the Army and defense requests for fiscal 2008, there were forecasts for projected spending in fiscal 2009.
One reason for doing that, Army and defense budget officials said, was to show the movement from emergency spending bills to the regular budget the costs of raising the end strength of the Army to 547,000 over the next five years.
MG Edgar Stanton, Director of the Army Budget, said budget themes included ensuring a right-sized force that also added special forces and civil affairs, sustaining the all-volunteer force with a decent quality of life in housing and facilities on post, providing funds to build and maintain facilities, accelerating modernization incorporating lessons from Afghanistan and Iraq, making available the money to meet the requirements of the Base Realignment and Closure Act and moving soldiers and their families from Germany and Korea back to the United States.
The request “grows the active Army by 65,000 and the Army National Guard and Army Reserve by 9,000 by fiscal 2013”, said, LTG David Melcher, Military Deputy for the Budget. He also said the spending plan would build a total of 76 combat brigades, 48 in the active force which is an increase of six brigades, all light infantry, with combat support and combat service support units added over the same period of time to support the new brigades.
Tina Jonas, Defense Department comptroller, said the increased end strength should allow the Army and Marine Corps to increase the time soldiers and Marines spend at home following a deployment. “Soldiers are spending a year at home and then deploying again,” she said.
The Army’s force generation model calls for a soldier to be available for deployment for one year and at home station for two.
“The budget continues to eliminate out-of-pocket housing expenses,” MG Stanton said and supports the Residential Communities Initiative, which uses basic allowance for housing (BAH) funds to entice developers to build and renovate Army family housing.
“We are manpower intensive,” LTG Melcher said in explaining how 36 percent of the budget request of $46.2 billion would go to military personnel.
That includes $4.87 billion for retiree health care. Ms. Jonas said the department is requesting $38.7 billion for health care and added the budget anticipates increases in enrollment fees and co-pays for retirees and their families who are under 65. (See story below)
Operation and maintenance spending would be set at $37.7 billion for the active force and the National Guard and reserve. This account covers operating forces, mobilization, training and recruiting, and is an increase of $5.7 billion over this fiscal year.
The modernization accounts would be funded at $34.3 billion which includes requests to buy 127 Strykers -- Mobile Gun Systems vehicles; Nuclear, Biological, Chemical Reconnaissance vehicles and commanders’ vehicles; more than 59,450 M4 carbine/combat optics machine guns to support modular brigade combat teams; and 125 Joint Lightweight 155mm Howitzers for seven Stryker brigades.
The budget would pay for 37 Armed Reconnaissance Helicopters, 44 Light Utility Helicopters and six new and 23 remanufactured CH-47F Chinooks; and upgrades and conversions of 36 AH-64 Apache Longbows.
How will the budget fare on Capitol Hill?
Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, suggested the Democratic-led Congress may move to pare back the defense budget. "We cannot provide an adequate national defense on the cheap, but neither can we afford to simply ratify the president's request without performing the due diligence and oversight our Constitution requires,"
“The President’s budget request appears to be an excellent balance between the immediate costs associated with the war on terrorism and our long-term modernization goals. I am pleased to see that equipment reset and readiness have been given a primary focus in the budget request,” said Ranking member Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif.
Retirees/Veterans would see Fee Increases in Budget
Again this year, one of the most contentious issues facing AUSA and its members will be the Administration’s proposal to make changes to TRICARE enrollment fees, deductibles and drug-co-pays for military retirees.
The press release accompanying the President’s budget stated, “The Defense Base Budget also provides $38.7 billion in FY 2008 for health care for the military personnel and their families. The Department of Defense’s health benefit program, TRICARE, is the best in the Nation, and the Department will seek legislative support to maintain those exceptional benefits for those who service by planning the program on a fiscally sound foundation for the long-term.
In other words, they will try to shift a larger share of the health care costs to military beneficiaries by imposing disproportionate fee increases. AUSA vehemently opposed their efforts last year and will again this year. Expect to see much more on this in the coming weeks as the Hill starts the budget debate.
Also, the budget echo’s last year’s in that it would increase the pharmaceutical co-pays of veterans who are considered to have no service-related disabilities and are above a certain income threshold. What’s different is the Administration’s plan to charge a VA health system enrollment fee that will be based solely on a veteran’s income, not on their enrollment priority group (assigned based on disabilities associated with service and income level).
Additionally, if you read the fine print, under the plan any money generated from a proposed increase in prescription drug co-payments and a new enrollment fees would go into the U.S. Treasury, not directly into the VA’s budget!
The Association will also fight these unfair increases.
New Legislation Spotlight
Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., offered legislation (S.439) that would allow veterans eligible for both disability compensation and retirement pay to collect both at the same time. Also known as concurrent receipt, “The Retired Pay Restoration Act of 2007” also eliminates the 10-year phase-in period for retirees with a disability rating of 50-90 percent and extends concurrent receipt and disability payments to retirees rated at less than 50 percent. Sen. Reid’s legislation is a companion bill to H.R. 303 introduced in the House by Rep. Gus Bilirakis, R-Fla.
Currently, those with combat-related or 100 percent disabilities are authorized full concurrent receipt and those with 50 percent or higher non-combat disabled will see their disability offset phased out over the next seven years.
AUSA strongly supports these bills. Our 2007 Resolution 07-04, Point 5, urges the Administration and Congress to repeal, in its entirety, the Department of Veterans Affairs offset on retirees military entitlement.
Answer to Military Trivia
Just three days after President Woodrow Wilson broke diplomatic relations with Germany and warned that war would follow if American interests at sea were again assaulted—a German submarine torpedoed and sank the Anchor Line passenger steamer California off the Irish coast. The SS California departed New York bound for Scotland, with 205 passengers and crewmembers on board. Eight days later, the ship’s captain spotted a submarine off his ship’s port side and ordered the gunner to fire in defense if necessary. Moments later and without warning, the submarine fired two torpedoes at the ship. One of the torpedoes missed, but the second torpedo exploded into the port side of the steamer, killing five people instantly. The explosion of the torpedo was so violent and devastating that the 470-foot, 9,000-ton steamer sank just nine minutes after the attack. Despite desperate S.O.S. calls sent by the crew, 38 people drowned, for a total of 43 dead.
This type of blatant German defiance of Wilson’s warning, combined with the subsequent discovery and release of the Zimmermann telegram—an overture made by Germany’s foreign minister to the Mexican government involving a possible Mexican-German alliance in the event of a war between Germany and the U.S.—drove Wilson and the United States to take the final steps towards war. On April 2, Wilson went before Congress to deliver his war message; the formal declaration of U.S. entrance into the First World War came four days later.
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