November Surprise?

The Defense Department is going through the Mother of All Budget Drills, gaming options for how it would spend an additional $57 billion in fiscal year 2010, according to the Pentagon's No. 2 official.

"We have considered a range of possibilities, and that's certainly one of them," England said of the $57 billion boost, first reported by InsideDefense.com. "But we won't have that budget together until November." England's comments, delivered following an address to the Navy League of New York City on Sept. 12, mark the first public acknowledgment by a Pentagon official that a major increase in defense spending could be in the offing.

Such a boost would be an 11th hour bid by the White House to revise the Pentagon's base budget, which the administration set on a course to steadily decline between FY-10 and FY-13 in its current five year budget plan.

The big question on the minds of many inside the building and on the Hill is when a decision on the size of the FY-10 budget will be made: before or after the Nov. 4 presidential election.