Pentagon Asks for Less, Gets More, Complains

[rowyn]

It's rather an interesting story. This one is particularly salacious, because the money Congress is appropriating this time is for military jets that Congressmen use. But there was a story some weeks back of Congress fighting to keep a jet fighter program the Pentagon wanted shut down, too.

A couple of quotes from a follow-up story:

Overall, the House trimmed Mr. Obama's budget request for the Pentagon to $636.3 billion, down slightly from the $640.1 billion he sought. But in so doing, House appropriators also rearranged spending priorities, cutting programs Mr. Obama favored and replacing them with items he wanted cut.

"The Pentagon is not the fountain of all knowledge," said Rep. Bill Young, a Florida Republican who was senior appropriator on the House floor last month when the Pentagon spending bill was approved. "They don't have all of the knowledge, and they don't have all of the wisdom. Neither does the administration, neither does the Congress. That's why we work together."

You know, that sounds quite reasonable. Although I can't really think just what Congress would know about military needs that the Pentagon wouldn't. Maybe they're planning a new war they haven't told the Pentagon about yet?

Comments

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

Spending half a billion on extra planes will make sure no congressman ever has to fly coach, ever again?

[rowyn]

Mission accomplished!

[telnar.livejournal.com]

The theoretical ideal military appropriations process might begin with congress passing a statement of priorities and then for the military to respond with a budget request based on those goals (with congress still having the final say to prevent the services from ignoring congress's priorities).

For example, it's perfectly reasonable for congress to want to increase the fraction of total spending used for defending Taiwan, but they are unlikely to do a good job prioritizing that spending between land-based aircraft, carriers and anti-missile batteries.

In the real world, unfortunately, representatives are much more interested in supporting military programs in their districts than in what strategy those programs are designed for.

[rowyn]

Yeah, I'm inclined to think that the appropriations for jets was less because the Congressmen wanted better accommodations and more because one of the people on the committee had jet-building constituents and supporters. :/

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

That was my first thought!

I think telnar's system makes much more sense, of course.