Unfunded {Low} Priority List

March 03, 2018

Unfunded (Low) Priority Lists

Weekly Wastebasket | March 2, 2018

Just a few weeks after Pentagon spending received a big boost in the President’s budget, services are crying poor and whining to Congress about billions of dollars worth of items that were left out.

Let’s look at the facts. The Pentagon got $686 billion in the budget request. That’s tens of billions more than in they are getting for fiscal year 2018 which was tens of billions more than in FY2017. Yet, the Navy and now the Air Force are running to Congress to get even more stuff. You can be sure Army and the Marines won’t be too far behind.

While completely outrageous, the lists are not altogether surprising or new. Except during the tenure of Defense Secretary Gates – who banned these type of requests – the so called “Unfunded Priorities List” have been around decades. We’re not buying it, but one could argue the need for this type of list when spending limits were slowing the growth of defense spending. But not now.

These items can’t be too much of a priority if there wasn’t room for them in the Navy’s $194 billion or the Air Force’s $156 billion request. We guess that is why the Navy described their pleadings as “unfunded contributors to naval power.”

The Navy seeks an additional $1.5 billion. Breaking that down a bit, that includes $250 million for research and development – well the budget request already has $18.8 billion for R&D. Navy procurement got $58.5 billion in the budget request, but Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Richardson is asking for another $1 billion. If these are such high priority items, couldn’t the Navy have considered cutting funding for the F-35 or the Littoral Combat Ship?

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