CSBA in the News

The Pentagon’s estimated budget has more than doubled to $676 billion in the past 10 years because of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Defense represents about 18% of total U.S. spending for fiscal 2012.

The government’s promise of lifetime health care for the military may no longer be sacred. Lawmakers are signaling a willingness to make military retirees pay more for coverage — but resistance is fierce.

In an interview in the New York Times on Oct. 23, 2011, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warned against cutting defense spending too severely as the U.S. winds down its involvement in Iraq and reconsiders how to proceed in Afghanistan.

In uncertain times regarding the budget, the Defense Department can change the way it does business and be more efficient or change the business it does and shift strategy, according to a report from the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

As Congress works to pass spending legislation for 2012, the White House has endorsed a Senate plan to freeze the Defense Department’s base budget at 2011 levels. The White House’s new position shows how much has changed since it first unveiled its budget request for the Pentagon in February. Back then, the White House expected the Pentagon’s budget to continue to enjoy real growth.

The 2013 defense budget is highly vulnerable to the final decision — or indecision — of the bipartisan Congressional supercommittee, Todd Harrison and Evan Braden Montgomery write in a new Center for Strategic and Budgetary assessments analysis, “Changing the Business of Defense.”