CSBA in the News

The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments is releasing a new report on the chaotic budget picture for fiscal 2014 today. Normally, Todd Harrison, one of the best defense budget experts in town, does an annual analysis of the Pentagon’s budget request, but this year that made no sense, he told Morning Defense. That’s because the continuing resolution and sequestration have rendered that document meaningless, which is to say, there’s no way the Pentagon is getting that much money this year.

The average cost of each U.S. troop in Afghanistan will nearly double in the last year of the war to $2.1 million, according to a new analysis of the Pentagon’s budget.

The current budget battle on Capitol Hill is more about taxes, entitlements and Medicare than defense spending, said Todd Harrison, a defense analyst for the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

Sequestration may not be the worst-case scenario for Pentagon budgets — defense spending could drop even lower in the next decade, a new report argues.

The U.S. Defense Department should accept the likelihood of continued budget cuts and prepare realistic spending plans that take them into account, an expert said.