Congress is wasting time while danger builds

Congress recently passed its third continuing resolution of fiscal 2024. This temporary funding solution to avoid a government shutdown simply extends the previous year’s budget for weeks or months. No amendments, increases, or decreases are allowed.

How does the U.S. government function or plan this way? It doesn’t. And for a Defense Department that manages everything from the latest conflicts to long-term challenges such as modernizing the nation’s nuclear weapons, the crisis of unpredictable and stagnant funding is even more severe. 

When our government isn’t funded on time, our nation’s security suffers. So do our wallets. The most solemn duty of our leaders in Washington is to provide for the common defense. In fact, national security is the only mandatory and exclusive job of the federal government. Yet our national elected representatives have become so divided and dysfunctional that each year we find ourselves grateful for wasteful, disruptive, and damaging temporary funding extensions that barely keep the government open for business. While these extensions avoid a complete shutdown, we should expect better performance from Congress.

The American taxpayer deserves the highest possible bang for each buck demanded by the same government that currently can’t even do its most fundamental task. In fact, the failure of Congress to do its job is costing the Pentagon close to $300 million in buying power every single day. This amount of money could buy three new heavy-lift helicopters or 100 long range anti-ship missiles — and that is just one day.

National security requirements change, so the budget must change with them. For defense, these shifts stem from evolving global threats in the Pacific and emergencies such as the conflicts in Europe and the Middle East. The budget must adjust to priorities, such as buying more missiles and munitions or higher costs of people and manufacturing.

Freezing the budget in time, only to adjust at the last minute every single year, puts our strategic imperatives out of sync with the budget. In short, we are losing time that we need to remain competitive and ready — time which no amount of money can ever buy back. 

For example, the Defense Department requested doubling of funding for its new data and artificial intelligence office in 2024, to accelerate programs to improve the nation’s military decision advantage. The 2024 budget would start 156 new efforts and support 180 production increases for crucial capabilities to counter China and protect the nation’s cyber infrastructure.

None of these are possible under a continuing resolution.

While trying to avoid spooking investors, multiple CEOs have now even started conveying general and specific concerns about the prospects of even longer continuing resolutions. This financial predicament affects everyone who works for or does business with the Defense Department, from the groundskeepers on military bases to the manufacturers of large platforms and the entire supply chain.

Meanwhile, China continues to rapidly build its military force, including its nuclear forces, while U.S. nuclear modernization eats up an increasing portion of a shrinking budget. Our maritime fleet is shriveling, our shipyards are struggling to keep existing ships at sea, and we can’t produce anywhere near the number of weapons we need for ourselves, let alone for partners and allies.

Emergency funds requested last fall for these things, along with support for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan also languish amid the paralyzed pace of progress in the nation’s capital.

The checks the taxpayer writes for national defense go to pay raises for the military, and to make up for the inflation eating at everyone’s purchasing power. They also go to non-defense expenditures which should probably be funded separately, such as cancer and autism research, environmental programs, education and other activities. 

America’s enemies celebrate our distraction and dysfunction in providing for our own defense as we become anaesthetized to what seems like a fate beyond our control. But we must not give up. The stakes are too high. And the solution is not actually that difficult. The framework for a budget agreement to finish 2024 appropriations has reportedly been reached. A compromise to obtain support for supplemental spending seems achievable.

We must continue to educate ourselves and our elected representatives about all we lose when they don’t get their job done. Our losses are easily measured in cash, but they extend to our security, our economy, our vitality and our future. The best time to pass the annual defense funding bill was last September. The second best time is now.

Elaine McCusker is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute think tank. She previously served as the Pentagon’s acting undersecretary of defense (comptroller).