Congress Looks to Supplemental to Counter Gates

(MoneyWatch)  President Obama has submitted a supplemental funding bill for FY09 to continue operations in Afghanistan. This is in line with how the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan was funded during the Bush Presidency. One of the reasons this is done as it is not always possible when doing the full budget over a year in advance to project expenditures and requirements. Congress must appropriate very specifically what the money should be used for and the supplemental allows it to do so during the actual year.

Part of the Obama spending reforms is to stop this practice and move the money into the general budget. This is a good idea and is the proper way of doing things, but to prevent massive realignments and transfers during the year the annual budget should hopefully have been built properly to cover operations. This is also technically one way of reducing the defense budget as the money is part of the four percent increase proposed which meant that several major weapon programs had to be canceled or scaled back.

There are now reports that Congress is looking at using the supplemental request to fund some of the programs that Gates' recommended ending. Some members are even talking about using it to buy more F-22 fighters whose procurement would end after the current four ordered in FY09. There is also word that more C-17 transports would be bought. Congress added the last buy even though the Air Force didn't request any. Certainly in the past things have been added to these bills that were not requested or not even related to fighting the wars.

Congressman John Murtha (D-PA), the head of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, although under intense fire and possible investigation for his use of earmarks also reportedly supports using the supplemental for funding things not necessarily asked for. Since the Democrats took control in 2006 Mr. Murtha was the starting point for all defense spending in the House and certainly he would like to continue that even with a Democratic president. This of course has led to his issues with the amount of earmarks he sent to this district and other companies related to the PMA Group a lobbyist organization now defunct as it is being investigated by the FBI that was headed by a former Murtha staffer. Mr. Murtha supports the C-17 and had talked in the past of keeping some VH-71 production.

Murtha has also received a request from one hundred Congressman supported by the Army National Guard to buy Stryker vehicles with the supplemental. The request is to build more of the ambulance/armored medical evacuation versions. These would be useful not only in Iraq and Afghanistan but also if the ARNG had to respond to natural disasters or homeland security missions. With the decision to end the development of the Future Combat Systems (FCS) wheeled portion it will be hard to resist buying more Strykers.

That is the big problem that Obama and Gates face when it comes to reducing programs from the defense budget. Every program is important to some legislator and Congress decides the final bill. That means the Services may get items they didn't ask for or won't get everything they did. It could be as small as a $25 million R&D contract or 20 more C-17 or F-22 at a cost of millions. The final budget won't be finished until the Fall so it will be interesting to see how this pans out.