Rumsfeld says extra funding would
cover 'people part,' critical shortfalls
By Sandra Jontz and Lisa Burgess, Washington bureau
WASHINGTON — The extra $18.4 billion the Bush administration has asked Congress to
add to the defense budget in 2002 focuses on "the people part" and addresses
"critical shortfalls" while leaving big-ticket "transformational"
changes to the 2003 budget request, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Wednesday.
The supplement, an addition to the $310.6 billion "placeholder" budget that
President Bush proposed in February, brings the total Defense Department request to $329
billion for 2002 — the biggest increase in military spending since the mid-1980s,
Rumsfeld said.
Aside from missile defense, however, which accounts for $7 billion of the request, the
supplement does very little to fund the measures Pentagon officials say are necessary to
transform the military to meet future threats.
"We cannot do everything at once," Rumsfeld said in a Wednesday press
conference. "It took years to get [into] this situation, and it will take years to
get out."
Instead, the 2002 supplemental money is urgently needed to shore up a decade’s
worth of growing infrastructure shortfalls, Rumsfeld said.
The total request "puts us on the path to recovery" in many areas, especially
"people" programs such as housing, health care and pay, Rumsfeld told the House
and Senate Armed Services committees on Thursday.
Funding for military personnel climbs from $75 billion in fiscal 2001 to $82.3 billion
in fiscal 2002, which includes enough money for a pay raise of at least 5 percent for
every servicemember. In the mid-grades, E-4 through E-9 and mid-grade officers —
"where retention is hardest" — the pay raises could be as high as 10
percent, Rumsfeld said. The raises are in addition to bonuses, which the Defense
Department plans to pay to keep individuals in certain high-need specialties.
The supplement also includes money to reduce the out-of-pocket housing costs for troops
from the current 15 percent to 11.3 percent. The Pentagon’s goal is to eliminate
out-of-pocket costs completely by fiscal 2005, Rumsfeld said.
The Pentagon wants to spend $2 billion in 2002 to restore degraded facilities from C-3
and C-4 status to C-2, based on a 1-4 system, with C-1 being the best and C-4 the worst
conditions.
The family housing budget, which would rise from $3.6 billion in fiscal 2001 to $4.1
billion in 2002, includes $195 million for 13,000 privatized units; $98 million for 849
new on-base units and improvements to existing units; and $107 million to build 1,380
bachelor enlisted quarters.
The proposal also eliminates poor and dangerous neighborhoods from the housing
allowance calculation.
"These are individuals who are already putting themselves in harm’s
way," said Dov Zakheim, the Pentagon’s chief finance officer. "They
don’t want to put their families in harm’s way, too."
The Defense Health Care Program accounts for $6 billion in the supplemental request,
bringing the total health care budget to $17.9 billion in the 2002 request, up from $12.1
billion in 2001.
The money will be used to fund health care benefits, including the new over-65 health
care and pharmacy benefit authorized in the fiscal 2001 budget. The Pentagon is proposing
a 15-percent growth in funds for pharmacy costs and 12 percent growth for managed care
contracts, amounts Zakheim says are in line with growth in national health care costs.
Missile defense, which President Bush has made a priority in his nascent defense
policy, is the most dramatic program winner in the 2002 proposal, rising from $5.3 billion
in fiscal 2001 to $8.3 billion in 2002.
Other areas the Pentagon is proposing to increase include aircraft operations,
increasing from $7.6 billion in 2001 to $9.4 billion; depot maintenance, from $6.6 billion
to $7.9 billion; and facility sustainment and base support, from $17.9 billion to $20.7
billion.
Training funds would jump slightly, from $8.5 billion to $9.3 billion. Reserve
components would receive $12.5 billion, rather than the $11.2 billion authorized in fiscal
2001.
Many areas remain essentially unchanged in the 2002 proposal, notably force structure.
Pentagon-watchers have predicted Rumsfeld is preparing to cut force structure, especially
in the Army, in favor of home-based defense and smaller, more agile units, but the 2002
budget proposal reflects the status quo in every service.
In "transformation," only few weapons programs are due to receive a
significant boost in funds if the Pentagon has its way. Among those systems are the
Army’s Future Combat System, which would go from $166 million in 2001 to $289 million
in 2002; digitization efforts, up from $223 million to $289 million; and the Global Hawk
surveillance system, up from $143 million to $307 million.
Other program winners include the Joint Tactical Radio System, which would go from $90
million to $186 million; joint experimentation efforts, doubled from $51 million to $100
million; and the Unmanned Underwater Vehicle, which would rise from $27 million to $56
million in 2002.
New programs to receive funding for the first time in 2002 would be the Deployable
Command and Control Program at $50 million, and the Small Diameter Bomb at $40 million.
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