On December 10, 2013 the congressional budget negotiators reached a compromise on 2014 Defense spending. The compromise allows for more clarity in defense spending for the current and next fiscal years (FY2014 and FY2015).
Senate Budget Committee Chairman, Patty Murray, and House Budget Committee Chairman, Paul Ryan, lead the respective legislatives body’s in negotiations on a defense spending deal. The compromise shaped by Senator Murray and Representative Ryan would increase the caps on spending for 2014 and 2015. FY2014 would increase to $520.5 billion from $498.1 billion and to $521.3 billion from $512.0 billion in FY2015.
The 2014 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), produced on December 9th, does little in forecasting procurement decisions, given the 2014 budget debacle. The NDAA authorized $552.1 billion in spending, but under the Murray/Ryan deal, NDAA would have to cut spending by approximately $30 billion. $80.7 billion is authorized for overseas contingency operations, but that is not counted against the spending cap. This compromise does not eliminate all the headaches for the Defense Department, this will very likely require an overhaul to the remainder FY2014 spending, to be allocated in the most efficient and effective ways.
The House and Senate must now pass new defense appropriation bills to meet the $520.5 billion for defense spending. The issue now for the Administration and Congress is to determine what gets cut. However, if a new spending bill is above the $520.5 billion cap, the Defense Department will most certainly face another sequester.