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DoD calls for 7.5% budget increase in ’09

The Bush administration on Monday unveiled a defense budget proposal that would boost baseline spending by 7.5 percent in fiscal 2009, which begins Oct. 1, the Defense Department announced Monday.

The total of $515.4 billion would be a $35.9 billion jump from the current fiscal year. Most of the growth is due to inflation, a weak dollar and higher costs for fuel and medical care, defense officials said.

If enacted into law, the total, adjusted for inflation, would represent the highest level of defense spending ever, according to Steve Kosiak, an analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

The budget would fund a 3.4 percent military pay raise that would match recent average wage growth for private-sector workers and would boost spending across the board on military housing and food allowances, operations, strategic modernization and family housing and facilities.

For the third consecutive year, the defense budget proposal also includes a call to raise some fees and deductibles under the military’s Tricare health insurance program. Defense officials say the increases are needed to help hold down soaring health care costs that they say threaten the viability of the health care benefit.

The plan would raise co-payments for all beneficiaries on prescriptions filled at retail pharmacies; charge an enrollment fee for Medicare-eligible older retirees covered by the Tricare for Life benefit; and charge higher enrollment fees, deductibles and co-payments for Tricare Standard and Tricare Prime to “working age” retirees under 65 and their families.

The increases were recommended by the Pentagon’s Task Force on the Future of Military Health Care, which in a December report proposed a Tricare fee system linked to income levels.

The Pentagon also is asking for an additional $70 billion increase to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan into the first few months of the new administration that will take office in January. The request comes even as Congress has yet to fully fund the two wars for the current fiscal year, for which defense officials are seeking an additional $102.5 billion.

Since Sept. 11, 2001, Congress has appropriated $636 billion for the two conflicts and other antiterrorism operations. The Pentagon says it is currently spending $11.9 billion per month on the two wars.

Under the new budget proposal, the Army would gain another 7,000 soldiers and the Marine Corps another 5,000 Marines by the end of fiscal 2009, the next phase of a five-year plan to grow those services by a total of more than 90,000 people combined. A total of $8.7 billion is budgeted for this growth for fiscal 2009.

Despite that growth, the size of the overall active-duty force would decrease by slightly less than 0.2 percent because of continued cuts in the size of the Navy and Air Force. The Air Force would cut another 12,000 airmen from its rolls and the Navy would cut 2,349 personnel by the end of fiscal 2009.

That would bring the total reduction in active-duty personnel since the end of fiscal 2007 to 16,895 airmen and 12,247 sailors.

The total reserve component force would climb to 838,000 people by the end of fiscal 2009, an increase of 9,519 personnel compared to the end of fiscal 2007.

Spending on pay, allowances, uniforms, meals, interest on deposits, gratuities, permanent-change-of-station moves and temporary-duty travel would amount to $36.5 billion. Spending on military housing and food allowances would jump $1.6 billion, with a 5 percent average increase in the basic allowance for housing and a 3.8 percent increase in the basic allowance for subsistence.

A total of $23.9 billion is budgeted for family housing and facilities, including $3.2 billion to eliminate substandard housing, operate and maintain government-owned housing, and privatize 12,324 family housing units. In addition, $11.2 billion is budgeted to maintain training centers and infrastructure, and $9.5 billion would go to continue implementing base closures.

The Pentagon also wants to fund a “Military Community Initiatives Program” that would include a number of family-friendly initiatives. These include a plan that would allow all troops to transfer a portion of their unused Montgomery GI Bill education benefits to family members; give military spouses grants for job training and preference for federal job openings; and expand child care through joint ventures with local communities.

The department wants to spend $158.3 billion on operations, readiness and support in fiscal 2009. That would include 45 ship steaming days per quarter; 608 annual tank miles, an increase of 149 from the current fiscal year; and slightly fewer flying hours — 13.9 per month for Air Force fighters and 14.5 for bombers.

The decrease will be offset by an increase in simulator flight hours, said Vice Adm. Steve Stanley, the Joint Staff’s director for force structure, resources and assessment.

On the weapons front, the Pentagon proposes to spend $183.8 billion, a $10.5 billion increase from this fiscal year.

Roughly half of the increase would be spent on joint air systems, Stanley said. The Defense Department wants to buy 16 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters; 36 V-22 Ospreys; 59 Predator, Reaper and Warrior unmanned aerial vehicles; and continue funding development of the SC-X aerial refueling tanker, slated to replace the Air Force’s aging KC-135 and KC-10 tankers.

The Air Force also wants to buy 20 F-22 Raptor fighter jets at a total cost of $4.1 billion; the Air Force says this will complete the three-year procurement of 60 Raptors that began in fiscal 2007.

Stanley said Congress has been notified that money for additional F-22s might be sought as part of the separate funding request that will support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the remainder of fiscal 2009 that will not be covered by the $70 billion in war funding folded into the 2009 budget itself.

Stanley said shutdown costs for the production line were not programmed into this budget because the line would remain open, allowing the next administration to make a decision on the construction of future F-22s.

The Air Force also plans to buy two Space Based Infrared System satellites at a cost of $2.32 billion; the eventual system will provide initial warning of a ballistic missile attack. Another $843 million would go to research and development on the Transformational Satellite Communications System.

On the Navy’s list are several big-ticket items. $4.2 billion is budgeted to complete the first aircraft carrier in the new CVN-77 class, the George H.W. Bush; $3.6 billion to build the next Virginia-class attack submarine; $3.2 billion to buy one DDG-1000 destroyer and $1.2 billion to buy two Littoral Combat Ships.

The Navy also wants to procure 23 F/A-18 Hornet jet fighters (a total of $1.98 billion), and 22 E/A-18G Growlers, the replacement for the EA-6B electronic warfare jet aircraft (a total of $1.8 billion).

The Army wants to buy $3 billion worth of helicopters: 63 UH-60 Black Hawks; 36 Light Utility Helicopters; 28 Armed Reconnaissance scout helicopters; and 16 CH-47 Chinook heavy-lift helicopters. It also is budgeting $1.3 billion for 119 Stryker armored vehicles; $947 million for 4,977 Humvees; $947 million for 3,187 FMTV diesel-powered trucks; and $195 million on 204 M-1117 Armored Security Vehicles.

The Marine Corps would spend $3.2 billion on research, development and procurement on various systems and $316 million on development of the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, an armored, tracked combat vehicle that will carry Marine rifle squads.

No Mine Resistant Ambush Protected armored vehicles, or MRAPs, are budgeted because defense officials say the entire objective of 15,374 MRAPs will be reached this fiscal year.

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Staff writer Rick Maze contributed to this report.