AUSA Urges Swift Passage of Funding to Support Army
AUSA Urges Swift Passage of Funding to Support Army
The Association of the U.S. Army is urging Congress to swiftly pass the national security supplemental to support the Army while investing in America’s defense industrial base.
“Legislation that provides critical funding to support the Army and our soldiers—while improving readiness and force protection and providing much needed investments in America’s defense industrial base—is required,” said retired Gen. Bob Brown, AUSA president and CEO. “Congress should work quickly and in a bipartisan way to meet the moment during this time of conflict.”
The national security supplemental package includes funding for Israel, Ukraine and the Indo-Pacific, as well as costs incurred by the U.S. military as it conducts operations in support of allies and partners.
U.S. Army leaders have publicly urged lawmakers to pass supplemental funding to support its operations around the world. The Army has “cash-flowed about $800 million” to support operations in Ukraine and the Middle East, and it is “planning on the supplemental to come through,” Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said April 10 during testimony before the House Appropriations defense subcommittee.
The money would be critical to replenishing the equipment the Army has sent to Ukraine and funding investments in munitions production, particularly 155 mm shells, Wormuth said.
Without the supplemental funding, the Army will not have enough funding by the end of May to redeploy units currently deployed to Europe or transport their replacements, Wormuth said. It also will not be able to support certain exercises or activities, she said.
“There are some real problems for us that are going to come out if we don’t have that supplemental,” Wormuth said.
On April 3, Army Undersecretary Gabe Camarillo warned the Army would face “devastating” effects without supplemental funding. “We have been cash-flowing a lot of those costs with our own internal Army funding,” Camarillo said during a breakfast hosted by AUSA. “We need that supplemental to reimburse us, because that’s essentially operations funds that we cannot use for other things like exercises that we had planned in Europe and the Pacific.”
In the $26.4 billion bill to support Israel, $1 billion would be used to enhance the production and development of artillery and critical munitions, $2.4 billion for current U.S. military operations in the region in response to recent attacks, $4.4 billion to replenish defense articles and services provided to Israel and $9 billion for worldwide humanitarian aid.
More than $48 billion of a $60.8 billion bill for Ukraine would be used to fund the U.S. defense industrial base and replenish U.S. stocks, while $7.3 billion would pay for U.S. military operations in the region.
An $8.1 billion bill would support efforts to counter Chinese aggression and increase deterrence in the region, including $542 million to strengthen U.S. military capabilities in the region and $133 million to enhance production of artillery and critical munitions.