Obama Defense Budget's Broad Guidelines to be Announced Monday

(MoneyWatch)  Starting late Friday and into Saturday word began to leak out what Secretary Gates will announce on Monday about the FY10 Defense Budget. As we wrote earlier the final numbers going to the Hill have slipped until May. The story that is being revealed is a complete overhaul of the modernization of the U.S. Armed Forces. It is expected when Gates first goes to brief the Congressional leadership and then in his public announcement that the Army's Future Combat Systems (FCS), missile defense, Navy shipbuilding and several aircraft programs will be restructured. DoD will focus their spending and new programs on those necessary for fighting the current "Overseas Contingency Operations". This has really been expected as the only real cuts that can be made to the budget are the large acquisition programs. Of course these are the programs that Congress likes so much as they bring money and jobs to their districts. We have seen fights already over the LCS program for the Navy as well as the C-17 transport where Congress is directing quantities over the Services desires. This means that Gates' proposals are only the starting point for what should be a long, hard restructuring of U.S. defense spending.