March 4, 2025
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) submitted the following op-ed to The Washington Post, printed in today’s edition, on the dangers of a clean, full-year Continuing Resolution (CR) at the Fiscal Year 2024 level:
Every time Congress faces a government funding deadline, Washington reminds itself — eventually — that shutdowns are worth avoiding. This is a familiar, and all-too-frequent, conversation.
What’s not familiar is the prospect of going an entire year without passing
new appropriations — and the new programs and capabilities they comprise — for the national defense. Never in recent history has Washington forced the U.S. military to spend a full year applying yesterday’s budget to tomorrow’s challenges.Today, we’re closer than ever to making ignoble history on this front. And we owe it to our men and women in uniform, and to taxpayers, to be honest about the consequences.
Consumer goods aren’t the only things that have grown more expensive in recent years. In times of high inflation, governance without updated appropriations means diminished Pentagon buying power. Forcing the U.S. military to equip itself for next year’s threats at this year’s prices with last year’s dollars is a recipe for disaster.
Even as fresh eyes comb the Pentagon for new efficiencies and cost-savings, effective military acquisitions continue to require multiyear runways. A truly clean, full-year, continuing resolution at the level set for FY2024 would mean no new starts on critical programs the military needs to adapt to a rapidly changing battlefield, such as directed-energy drone and missile defenses. No new starts this year means fewer new capabilities in warfighters’ hands two, five and 10 years from now.
To be clear, we’re not approaching this cliff — we’re careening over it. The fiscal year is almost half over. By March 14, the failure to pass full-year defense appropriations last fall will have cost taxpayers $17 billion in defense buying power. In other words, contending with current inflation and new requirements with old funding levels has already meant an effective shortfall of $103 million per day.
Consigning the rest of the fiscal year to this austere reality would only compound the damage.
Extending the 2024 budget through the end of FY2025 would mean the Defense Department would lack the funds to make payroll for 2 million service members — especially after accounting for the additional 10 percent junior enlisted pay raise authorized last year. Making up this shortfall will almost certainly involve siphoning funds the services have budgeted for other critical missions and capabilities.
Spending the entire year under the FY2024 funding level will mean no money or authorization for 168 new programs — many of which are required to outcompete China in space and cyberspace. In the race to project power and deter aggression across the Indo-Pacific, it would put U.S. forces and our regional allies even further behind.
Specifically, it would mean stopping the ongoing construction and refueling of up to 26 Navy warships. It would delay three new destroyers, up to 10 new Virginia-class submarines and four new Columbia-class submarines (which sustain a critical leg of the nuclear triad).
The costs of deterring war pale in comparison to the costs of fighting one. If Congress is unwilling to make deterrent investments today, then discussion about the urgency of looming threats — particularly the “pacing threat” of China — carries little weight.
Last year, on a bipartisan basis, Senate appropriators recommended we pass funding that would have exceeded President Joe Biden’s meager defense budget request by nearly $20 billion. That recommendation fell on deaf ears with the Senate’s Democratic majority. Now, we face the prospect of a clean continuing resolution that would spend roughly $8 billion less than Biden’s request.
No senator or member of Congress can claim ignorance of the ways that outdated funds harm national security. Senior officials at the White House and Pentagon, for their part, are not absolved from their obligation to ensure full-year appropriations for the military. This administration took office with a mandate to restore peace through strength.
Surely, no American who is concerned about threats abroad thinks that cutting billions from the military is the way to face them.
Tying one hand behind our backs is no one’s idea of restoring the warrior ethos. It is alarming that we don’t hear anything from the Pentagon’s senior-most civilian leaders about the need to raise the defense budget’s topline — or the looming, self-inflicted harm to readiness and lethality that would come from failing to pass new, full-year defense appropriations for the first time in memory.
China certainly isn’t hamstrung by these kinds of challenges. And U.S. allies, including those with far more expansive social welfare systems, continue to make tough choices to make their militaries even more capable. In fact, the rate at which European NATO allies are increasing defense spending far outpaces our own. Since 2022, they have committed more than $185 billion to buying U.S.-made weapons and defense systems.
Meeting that demand, while modernizing U.S. forces at the same time, requires robust full-year appropriations. We cannot rebuild our military without bigger topline investments in defense.
Mitch McConnell, a Republican, represents Kentucky in the U.S. Senate
No comments:
Post a Comment