Big Reveal: FY-12 Budget

Defense Secretary Robert Gates is heading to Congress tomorrow to preview key elements of the Pentagon's fiscal year 2012 spending proposal for select lawmakers, according to sources on Capitol Hill.

The briefing is expected to clarify DOD's position on a number of programs that Pentagon leaders decided months ago to terminate but technically are still alive, such as the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle. Gates is also expected to unveil the results of his effort to find more than $100 billion over five years in efficiencies, redirecting some Pentagon spending from bloated overhead operations to the weapons investment accounts.

Bloomberg yesterday reported the White House Office of Management and Budget and the Pentagon have agreed to a $554 billion FY-12 base budget request, a sum the news service called “modest growth.”

But Gordon Adams, American University professor and a senior OMB official during the Clinton administration, argues that Bloomberg “has been spun” and that a $554 billion topline reflects not an increase but a cut:

A DOD base budget of $554 billion would only be growth over FY 2011′s budget if the defense budget for FY 2011 were frozen at the FY 2010 level of $531 billion.  But this would be a significant cut of more than 3% this year from the $549 billion the Pentagon asked for and zero growth over FY 2010.  Figure there will be inflation; that’s a budget cut.

Adams notes that $549 billion is the FY-12 target that DOD planners used last year to develop their investment plans:

Now the FY 2012 number looks different – $554 billion is less than one percent growth over DOD’s budget request for FY 2011.  Less than one percent doesn’t even keep up with inflation, which OMB projects at over 1.5% and DOD projects (for defense) at over 2%.  That’s a cut from the planned and programmed baseline, which is exactly what Gates did not want when he announced his efficiencies initiative last summer.