...Kate Blakeley, a defense analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, told Inside Defense in an email that granting any of the specific UPL items, especially increasing weapon system quantities, would have a significant impact to DOD's five-year defense budget plan since the department will still be forced to operate under the 2011 Budget Control Act spending caps if Congress doesn't again raise them in the form of a bipartisan deal. “A major budgetary problem with the procurement and modernization in these 'unfunded requirements' lists is that they need financial resources not just in FY-17, but across the outyears,” she wrote. “As these asks are by definition unfunded, there isn’t money programmed in FY-18 and beyond. Without adjusting the BCA caps, adding these 'unfunded requirements' are going to make the budget picture even tighter next year.” Blakeley pointed out that, in total, the services' UPLs are asking for $7.7 billion more to support aviation...
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