Pentagon Budget Request for Weapons Will Be $7 Billion Less Than Forecast
Lockheed F-35 Jet
Lockheed
Additional delays on the F-35 program “and pressure in Congress to reduce government spending are all taking their toll on procurement accounts,” said Todd Harrison, a defense budget analyst.
Additional delays on the F-35 program “and pressure in Congress to reduce government spending are all taking their toll on procurement accounts,” said Todd Harrison, a defense budget analyst. Source: Lockheed
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates
Keith Bedford/Bloomberg
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Photographer: Keith Bedford/Bloomberg
Pentagon Cuts $6.9 Billion by Delaying Lockheed F-35
Lockheed Martin Corp. via Bloomberg
Lockheed Martin Corp. employees working on the F-35 fighter jet production line at the company's facilities in Fort Worth, Texas.
Lockheed Martin Corp. employees working on the F-35 fighter jet production line at the company's facilities in Fort Worth, Texas. Source: Lockheed Martin Corp. via Bloomberg
The U.S. Defense Department will request about $113 billion for weapons in the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, $7 billion less than planned in its forecast last year, according to government officials.
In the budget, due for release Feb. 14, will be 32 Lockheed Martin Corp. F-35 jets for the Air Force and Navy, software upgrades for its F-22 fighter and additional MC-130 transports for special operations, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss budget figures before the request is published.
The budget also includes for two Virginia-class nuclear submarines made jointly by Northrop Grumman Corp. and General Dynamics Corp., four Littoral Combat Ships made by Lockheed and General Dynamics-led teams, and $1 billion in advance funding for the Northrop-built CVN-78 aircraft carrier, the officials said.
The budget adds about $1.4 billion to buy more Boeing Co. Army AH-64 Apache helicopters, drones from other companies and more Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles made by Oshkosh Corp.
Still, the weapons request is $7 billion less than the $120.3 billion in base budget procurement the Pentagon had forecast last year for fiscal 2012. The reductions were part of an overall $13 billion in fiscal 2012 cuts the Office of Management and Budget imposed on the Pentagon for deficit reduction.
“What this says is that the increase in procurement spending the Pentagon had projected will not materialize,” said Todd Harrison, a defense budget analyst for the non-partisan Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.
“It’s a steep reduction -- about 8.5 percent in real terms -- from what they were previously predicting,” Harrison said.
Taking ‘Toll’
Additional delays on the F-35 program “and pressure in Congress to reduce government spending are all taking their toll on procurement accounts,” Harrison said.
U.S. spending on weapons through 2016 was supposed to grow faster than the overall defense budget, which will have annual increases of only about 1 percent above inflation.
“Our goal would be to get forces and modernization to grow by 2 or 3 percent,” said Pentagon Comptroller Robert Hale in a Bloomberg interview in July 2010, while saying that “it’s not a given.”
Gates’s Cuts
Hale’s remarks were made months before Defense Secretary Robert Gates agreed to cut $78 billion through 2016 for deficit- reduction purposes and reduced the planned fiscal 2012 F-35 purchase by 13 aircraft to 32 and shift $4.6 billion into extended development.
The base procurement budget increased 7.7 percent to $112.9 billion this year from $104.8 billion approved in fiscal 2010, according to the non-partisan Congressional Research Service.
The Pentagon Feb. 14 will release a $553 billion base budget plus a request for about $117 billion to cover the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The request also includes $15 billion in procurement dollars contained in the war-spending request, bringing the entire weapons-purchase request to $128 billion, down from a combined $137.5 billion requested this fiscal year and $135.8 billion in fiscal 2010, according to Pentagon figures.
Separately, the Pentagon will request about $75.7 billion for research and development, $4.7 billion below the $80.4 billion Congress is considering for this year.
To contact the reporter on this story: Tony Capaccio in Washington at acapaccio@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Silva at msilva34@bloomberg.net
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