AUSA President Gen. Gordon R. Sullivan, USA, Ret., continued his visits with key lawmakers last week as he met with House Armed Services Committee Chairman Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., and Rep. Chet Edwards, Chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Construction and Veterans Affairs.

Among the topics discussed with Rep. Skelton was the Army’s end strength and the future of Army budget requests. 

Gen. Sullivan remains convinced that the current Army base budget is underfunded by a minimum of $10 billion and that the Army’s share of the Defense Department’s base budget should be increased to at least 28 percent.

Gen. Sullivan’s meeting with Rep. Edwards covered many of the same topics.  Gen. Sullivan did congratulate Rep. Edwards on successfully adding to higher education legislation an AUSA-supported amendment that would allow children of military families to qualify for in-state tuition rates at public universities (see story below).

Other issues discussed was funding for Veterans’ health care programs as well as military health care in general.

 

President Releases Budget Request for Fiscal 2009

The President’s Fiscal Year 2009 budget request, submitted to Congress last week, seeks about $141 billion for the Army. 

The request includes a 3.4 percent military pay raise and 2.9 percent pay raise for department civilians and $15.5 billion to increase the size of the Army by 7,000 soldiers.  It also calls for a 5 percent increase in the Basic Allowance for Housing and 3.8 percent increase in Basic Allowance for Subsistence.  Some of the Basic Allowance for Housing will be going into privatizing an additional 2,455 units of Army family housing. 

The request also seeks $42.8 billion for the health program but calls for $1.2 billion in higher fees and copayments for military retirees under 65 and their families.  A defense news release on the budget said the move “aligns military health care premiums and copayments for retirees under age 65 with general health insurance plans to ensure the sustainability of a high quality health care system.  This has been a highly contentious issue in Congress for the past several years.  Tina Jonas, defense comptroller said, like other employers, “health care has been a cost challenge.”

The Army request includes $51.8 billion for military personnel, $40.2 billion for operations and maintenance, $24.6 billion for procurement, $10.5 billion for research and development and testing and evaluation and $11.4 billion for construction of base realignment and closure requirements and Army family housing.

Army budget officials said the coming year “is a big year for military construction” to grow the force, keep base realignment and closure on track, provide for soldiers and their families returning to the United States from Germany and Korea.  They said that the usual request in these areas had been between $2 billion and $3 billion.  “We’re trying to meet BRAC guidelines ... and grow the Army.”

That includes the Army National Guard and Army Reserve.  The Army National Guard will be seeking $5.4 billion in operations and maintenance and Army Reserve, $2.5 billion.  The guard will be seeking $539 million in military construction, an increase of about $2 million, and the reserve $282 million, an increase of $134 million.  The largest part of the $134 million is going to “grow the Army spending.”

The request is part of the Defense Department’s request of $515.4 billion for its base budget, $35.3 billion -- 7.3 percent -- more than the $480.1 billion Congress appropriated for FY 2008.  The Army’s share of the total request is about 27 percent.  This would be the 11th consecutive year of increased defense spending.

Vice Adm. Steve Stanley, a senior Defense Department official said one reason for the above the rate of inflation increase in defense spending is:  “The department is moving toward putting items in the base budget” that had been included in emergency spending bills.

Jonas cited as examples of this shift to the base budget the placing of funds to grow the Army and Marine Corps in personnel and operations and maintenance accounts.  For example, Army military personnel accounts were set at $4.3 billion to pay for the larger force in the coming fiscal year.

The budget request also calls for $7.5 billion “to support the Army and Marine Corps efforts to provide survivable, capable and modern tactical vehicles and vehicle armor to the entire force” and an additional $496 million to combat improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

The Army is asking for $3.56 billion for the Future Combat System (FCS) which remains the service’s top procurement and research and development program for the coming fiscal year.  LTG David Melcher, military deputy for the Army budget, said, “We believe Congress took too much out of FCS and we have to go back with a reprogramming request” for the $200 million cut from the program’s research, development and test and evaluation programs for each of the last two fiscal years.  He said that these cuts have added six to nine months to the fielding of the total FCS.

The Army is seeking $10.5 billion for research development, test and evaluation and a little more than $5 billion to buy and modernize its aircraft.

The $5 billion request would replace Kiowa Warriors with 28 Armed reconnaissance Helicopters, produce 63 Black Hawk helicopters for new modular brigades, buy seven Joint Cargo Aircraft, modernize 32 Apache attack helicopters and transition 23 CH-47 Chinooks for F models and buy 16 new Chinooks.

With a projected buy of 108 Patriot Advanced Capability-3 missiles, that program will be completed if approved by Congress.

The Army is asking for about $2.3 billion to buy ammunition for training and modernizing the production base.

The Army is also asking for about $950 million to buy 5,065 up-armored and ruggedized Humvees and about the same amount to buy medium-sized trucks to replace aged 2.5- and 5-ton trucks.

In addition, the service seeks $231 million for Force XXI Battle Command Brigade and Below systems, and $316 million for Night Vision Goggles and Thermal Weapon Sights.

 

Defense Secretary to Hill: Quick Action Needed on Emergency Supplemental

In other budget news, during his testimony on the President’s fiscal 2009 budget request, Defense Secretary Robert Gates urged quick congressional action on a pending $102 billion emergency war spending bill for this fiscal year.  "Delay is degrading our ability to operate and sustain the force at home and in theater, and is making it difficult to manage this department in a way that is fiscally sound," Gates said.  He added, "The Department of Defense is like the world's biggest supertanker."

Speaking at last week’s hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, he also said, "It cannot turn on a dime and cannot be steered like a skiff."

In answer to a series of questions, he said that to avoid the roller coaster rides of falling and rising defense spending in between wars that 4 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) would be a good figure to spend on national security.

Reflecting on the base budget request of $515.4 billion and the $70 billion in emergency war spending, "There is no question it is a huge amount of money," Gates told the House Armed Services Committee later in the day.  He told both committees that this would be the largest defense budget since World War II.

Gates said that defense spending was likely to decline in the future.

"I think we need to leave [the next administration] a budget that we have put together that sets some markers in terms of what needs to be done," he said.

Adding, "Going forward, we should not leave the next administration a budget that has negative growth in the Defense Department and I think we're going to have to address some of those issues," including the cost of the Future Combat Systems, the Army’s largest procurement program.

Gates defended the decision not to seek more than $70 billion in emergency war spending for the coming fiscal year because “there are significant variables in play.” 

Among the variables are reports from Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker on the security situation in Iraq that will come out in April meetings and hearing in Washington, a report from U.S. Central Command on its assessment of the security needs in the region that also includes Afghanistan and an assessment of overall security needs from the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“It’s clear that General Petraeus’ view will have a very strong impact but the president will need to hear other views as well,” before deciding on troop levels for Iraq and its impact on a future emergency spending request, Gates said.  “Remember three quarters of that money will be spent by the new administration.”

Later in answer to a question he personally thought $100 billion more would be needed. “I have no confidence in that figure.”

The Fiscal Year 2007 Defense Authorization Act requires the administration to submit its best estimates of emergency war spending when it submits the coming fiscal year’s budget in February.

Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., said there was too big “a difference between the bid and the ask” when emergency spending requests come in piecemeal.  He said his staff has taken to calling the process “a fudge-it.”  “The system here is broken.”

House Passes Amendment to Lower College Tuition for Military Children

The House passed an AUSA-supported amendment that would lower the burden of college tuition for children of military families by allowing them to qualify for in-state tuition rates at public universities across the country.  The amendment to H.R. 4137, The Higher Education Reauthorization Act was added by .Reps. Chet Edwards, D-Texas and Nancy Boyda, R-Kan.

“One of the many hardships military families face when they move from base to base is their children’s inability to qualify for in-state tuition rates at public universities.  Given the sacrifices being made by our military families, it is wrong to raise a military child’s college tuition by $10,000 to $20,000 a year when a parent is re-stationed to a military base in a different state,” said Rep. Edwards, Chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Construction and Veterans Affairs.

Specifically, the amendment mandates in-state tuition benefits for military dependents if their parent is stationed or domiciled in that state, as well as when a military child’s parent is re-stationed outside of a state after the son or daughter has started college. 

Rep. Edwards said, “Granting military children the ability to pay in-state tuition rates throughout the country means many will no longer have to give up their education goals when their parents’ military orders come in.  Part of keeping our promise of to our service men and women is making sure that their children are not penalized simply because their parents have answered their country’s call to serve.”

Rep. Boyda said, "When military service members sign up to serve America, they willingly make many sacrifices. They give up control of where they live and work, and they risk losing their lives. They shouldn't have to sacrifice their children's future, too."

As stated in a previous story in this Newsletter, AUSA President Gen. Gordon R. Sullivan congratulated Rep. Edwards during their meeting last week.  Gen. Sullivan said, “In-state tuition for service members and their families has been a goal of the Association’s for many years.  It is included in our Resolutions for 2008 and we are grateful for Reps. Edwards and Boyda that our goal has been passed in the House.  The ability to deliver a quality of life that meets the needs of our soldiers and their families worldwide is central to attracting and retaining high quality soldiers.”