Military personnel funding would have a $5.8 billion shortfall and no new military construction projects would be able to start if Congress does not pass a regular full-year Pentagon spending bill for this fiscal year, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff warned in a recent letter to Congress.
“DoD has never operated under a year-long CR; it would be historically costly to the Joint Force,” Gen. Charles “C.Q.” Brown wrote to the Senate Appropriations Committee on Wednesday.
Since the start of the fiscal year at the beginning of October, the Defense Department, along with the rest of the federal government, has been operating under a stopgap spending measure known as a continuing resolution, or CR, because lawmakers have been unable to agree to regular full-year appropriations bills.
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Brown’s letter warns Congress against relying on the temporary measures through next October, rather than passing traditional budget legislation with new funding levels.
CRs essentially put the government on autopilot by extending the previous year’s funding level while preventing new programs from starting. They have been standard for Congress to pass for the first few months of the fiscal year in recent decades, but a yearlong CR would be unprecedented.
Under the current stopgap measure, most Pentagon funding expires Feb. 2. Military…
