Pentagon budget request grows to
$329 billion for fiscal year 2002
By Lisa Burgess,
Washington bureau
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon will ask Congress for an additional
$18.4 billion for fiscal 2002, bringing the total defense budget request to $329 billion,
a senior defense official said Friday.
The new defense budget represents a $33 billion increase over the
$296 billion fiscal 2001 budget — about 7 percent after adjusting for inflation, the
official said. The government’s 2002 fiscal year begins Oct. 1.
The budget request, which the Pentagon hopes to send to Capitol Hill
by the end of the week, fulfills a pledge by President Bush to augment the
“placeholder” defense budget of $310.5 billion submitted by the White House soon
after Bush took office.
Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney secured broad support from the
military during the 2000 presidential campaign by promising that “help is on the
way.”
Military personnel of all ranks widely assumed that promise would
translate into an infusion of cash, beginning with the fiscal 2002 request, which was due
to Congress in January.
The official, who requested anonymity, said the supplemental request
“reflects honest budgeting.
“The administration has inherited severe shortfalls; far worse
than originally understood,” the senior official said.
“[So] more than 50 percent of this request is directed at
remedying the health program and other critical shortfalls.”
More than $8 billion of the request is devoted to infrastructure,
readiness, operations and maintenance items; another $6 billion is earmarked for pay,
housing and health programs.
The only major weapons program to get a significant increase with the
new request is missile defense — the Pentagon is seeking $600 million for that
program.
Any other increases to weapons platforms “are of the smaller,
aggregate variety,” the official said.
The $18.4 billion supplemental request calls for:
$4.1 billion for pay and housing;
$2 billion for the defense health program;
$1.6 billion for base operations;
$1.3 billion for readiness operations, such as flying hours;
$2.6 billion for operations and maintenance, such as depot
maintenance;
$2.6 billion for infrastructure;
$3.6 billion for modernization; and
$600 million for missile defense.
The supplemental request includes a $1 billion offset, reflecting
savings from “a series of management reforms we believe are quite reasonable,”
the official said.
The $1 billion in savings “is the first manifestation of
[Defense] Secretary [Donald] Rumsfeld’s commitment to efficiency,” the official
said.
Military officials were stunned when the White House submitted its
2002 defense request — essentially the placeholder budget left by the Clinton
administration.
Rumsfeld, however, promised that the Bush administration would ask
Congress to amend the 2002 budget proposal at the conclusion of a sweeping, comprehensive
review of national security strategy.
That review, defense officials said in February, would be completed
by early March, with an amended budget to follow soon after.
But the so-called “Rumsfeld review,” which was conducted in
secret by panels of analysts drawn mostly from outside the Pentagon, was not completed
until recently.
Last month, Bush was able to pass the most important project of his
early administration, a broad-based tax cut.
The cut, however, leaves very little room for additions to the entire
federal budget in 2002 unless Congress is willing to adjust spending caps.
The exact amount of the budget surplus available for Congress to
spend in fiscal 2002 is hotly disputed: the Democrats say the amount is $23 billion; the
Republicans insist it is $38 billion.
Rumsfeld has been mum about his discussions with the Office and
Management and Budget concerning the 2002 supplemental request, but some defense officials
have said that he was seeking an extra $35 billion in funding.
But the senior official refused to express disappointment in the
final amendment request.
“I assume that the OMB felt this increase was consistent with
the president’s other commitments,” the official said.
“A $33 billion increase over 2001 isn’t exactly
insignificant.”
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