Six-Year Spending Plan Projects 32 Percent Hike From FY '03-'09
By Stephen Trimble (Aviation Week and Space Technology)
The Department of Defense's six-year spending plan, sent to Congress Feb. 3, projects a 32 percent budget increase from fiscal 2003 to 2009 and would shift billions of dollars next year to shipbuilding, special operations forces, space and communications networks.
DOD outlays would rise $15.3 billion to $379.9 billion in FY '04, and continue to grow over the six-year period to top $483.6 billion, according to the budget request. The combined national defense budget, which includes Energy Department defense-related programs and other accounts, would jump from $382.2 billion this year to $502.7 billion in FY '09.
The procurement topline, however, would grow at nearly twice the pace of the overall defense budget, rising 60 percent from $70 billion this year to $112.2 billion at the end of the decade. Those estimates reflect a "bow wave" of procurement bills coming due by FY '09, as several major acquisition programs - including the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, Future Combat System and Space Based Radar - go from development to production.
More than $7 billion would be reallocated next year to help offset the bow wave effect. Current plans, if enacted, would yield $82 billion in savings by FY '09.
The Pentagon plans to send more than 500 Navy and Air Force aircraft into early retirement over the next six years and is canceling or restructuring nearly 50 Army programs, ranging from the Crusader artillery system to upgrades for Abrams tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles.
"We have accepted near-term risk in order to transform over the long-term," a senior defense official said Jan. 31 in a Pentagon briefing.
The official pegged the Pentagon's actual discretionary spending budget - meaning non-operational and non-personnel funds - at roughly $75 billion next year. Nearly a third of that total is being devoted to the military's transformation goals.
Although the overall savings estimate in recent weeks has fluctuated to as high as $90 billion, the senior defense official said the Pentagon is confident in the $82 billion number. The number is based on known operating costs for each legacy system being retired.
Of the $7 billion of reallocated funds in FY '04, some is being shifted to more promising programs. The remainder, about $4 billion, is being applied as direct savings for next year's budget.
"If they [the services] came up with the savings themselves, they kept it," the senior defense official said. "If we [the Office of the Secretary of Defense] found the money, we dispersed it."
Among the highlights of the FY '04 spending plan is a surprising funding increase for shipbuilding. The plan is raise the build rate from five ships to seven, and increase the overall shipbuilding budget by $2.7 billion to $12.16 billion. Spending includes more than $700 million on the Carrier Replacement Program, which should develop a revamped CVNX1 - dubbed the CVN21 - by FY '07.
Tactical air (editorial remark: Lockheed and Boeing money)
Tactical aircraft spending would continue mostly on track in FY '04, but deep cuts are projected in the outyears as part of the belt-tightening strategy.
The F/A-22 Raptor program would receive $5.2 billion for development costs and for building 22 aircraft in FY '04, but total production is now capped at 276 planes, down from a potential high of 331 projected about a year ago. However, the program appears to have rebounded in recent weeks from a series of problems that contributed to a $700 million cost overrun revealed in November, a senior defense official said.
In the long-term, Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) orders are being cut from 2,850 to roughly 2,500 aircraft, but next year's developmental budget would climb nearly $1 billion, to nearly $4.4 billion.
The Pentagon is holding the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet's production rate steady at 42 aircraft per year, but is trading procurement of more than 50 Super Hornets that had been planned during '03-'09 for an electronic warfare variant, the E/A-18G, starting deliveries in FY '05.
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