Call it the budget of denial. The Obama administration’s $526.6 billion Pentagon budget request for the 2014 fiscal year arrived two months late and $52 billion over the spending caps. The White House insists that its wider plan for taxes and spending, released today, will make further deep cuts at Defense unnecessary. But if President Obama and congressional Republicans fail to cut a deal—odds are they won’t—come October, the Pentagon will be scrambling once again to find many billions more in savings. It’s still trying to find the $41 billion it has to cut this year/.../
Perhaps the biggest challenge of all for Pentagon managers will be reining in the growth in benefits and other personnel costs. Harrison, of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, says that costs per active-duty service member—including health care, salary, housing, and pension set asides—have increased 57 percent from 2001 to 2012. If it continues at this pace, and the Pentagon budget does not rise in real terms, it will eat up the entire defense budget by 2039. Spending on health care alone has doubled in real terms over the past decade, to $51 billion this year.