To Reform DOD, Congress Must Do Its Job

On September 7, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin transmitted a letter to the congressional appropriations committees warning against the passage of a six-month continuing resolution. Austin’s warning was dire—failing to pass a full-year appropriation would be “devastating to our readiness and ability to execute the National Defense Strategy.” Eighteen days later, Congress passed a six-month continuing resolution anyway. 

Between 2000 and 2010, Congress passed the defense budget on schedule five times—only once did Congress rely on continuing resolutions for more than 100 days after the start of the fiscal year.

Between 2011 and the present, Congress passed the defense budget on schedule only once. Congress relied on continuing resolutions for more than 100 days seven times.

Prior to calendar year 2010 (fiscal year 2011), the Department of Defense operated under a continuing resolution for a total of 335 days, just less than one year.

After calendar year 2010 (fiscal year 2011), the Department of Defense operated under a continuing resolution for a total of 1,701 days, or almost five years.

Under a continuing resolution, the Department of Defense cannot start new programs, a fact that hinders the department’s need to respond to rapidly changing conditions or to capitalize on technological innovations.

Five years under continuing resolutions is five years wasted.

To its credit, the Department of Defense has finally begun exploring options to reform its 63-year-old planning, programming, budgeting, and execution process—PPBE—a relic of the McNamara era.

In the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022, Congress included a provision creating an independent commission tasked with conducting a comprehensive assessment of the PPBE process and developing recommendations to improve its effectiveness.

The Commission issued its final report in March 2024 and is replete with descriptions of current processes as time-consuming, inflexible, and an obstacle to innovation.

For readers unfamiliar with the defense budget, department officials begin crafting it two years in advance of its submission. To complicate matters, the planning, programming, and budgeting phases overlap. As the commission noted, while the department is executing fiscal year 2023 and 2024 appropriations, it is testifying on its 2025 budget, finalizing its budget submission for 2026, building its budget for 2027, and beginning conceptual planning for 2028.

Three years ago, the United States was emerging from the COVID pandemic, coping with global supply chain disruptions, and finally preparing to withdraw from Afghanistan. Today, the Russia–Ukraine war has entered its third year; Israel is at war with Hamas, the Houthis, and Hezbollah; and China continues its ascent. During this period, unmanned aerial systems have demonstrated their efficacy in war and artificial intelligence has dominated policymakers’ attention.

International circumstances and challenges three years from now will defy prediction. Yet the Department of Defense will proceed on the basis of decisions made years ago.

The commission proposed a total of 28 recommendations encompassing the establishment of an entirely new resourcing process, transforming the budget structure, and granting decision-makers more discretion over appropriated funds. To date, the department has enacted 13 reforms and has established a number of cross-functional teams to explore further implementation.

The commission additionally submitted recommendations to Congress for its consideration, principally adjustments to appropriation processes and the establishment of a new authority to more easily transfer dollars from research phase to procurement.

Three of the four relevant congressional committees—the House and Senate Armed Services Committees and the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee—signaled their general support for the commission’s proposals. 

The holdout? The Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee.

In its report on fiscal year 2025 defense appropriations, the subcommittee articulated a polite but emphatic “no, thank you,” “cautioning against blank recommendations without measurable outcomes or data to justify the changes.”

As for continuing resolutions, the committee felt the department’s pain and passively spread the blame—“the difficulties and inefficiencies they cause underscores the importance of Congress enacting appropriations on-time.” Again, this is the Appropriations committee making this point.

In short, reform for thee, but not for me.

The truth is that reforming either institution would be an undertaking of gargantuan proportions.

Since 2000, Congress has enacted over 100 continuing resolutions to keep the federal government open. Since 2015, continuing resolutions have funded government operations for an average of 137 days every year, a little more than a third of the year. If Congress can’t be counted on to reduce spending, it could at least pass the budget on time.

In December 2022, the Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress issued its final report which contained 202 recommendations to make the body more effective, efficient, and transparent. To date, fully or partially implemented recommendations have totaled 132. Notably recommendations to enhance transparency, such as streamlining the bill-writing process and making it easier to know who is lobbying Congress and for what they’re lobbying, re open. More pointedly, the recommendations only apply to the House.

During the same period, the Department of Defense has never passed an audit. Last year, the DOD Inspector General found that financial managers recorded more than 1,573 unsupported adjustments totaling more than $192.7 billion. DOD financial management has been on the Government Accountability Office’s High-Risk List since 1995. 

Between August 2021 and April 24, the United States has executed 56 drawdowns to provide approximately $24 billion in aid to Ukraine. In June 2023, the department announced that it had incorrectly overstated the value of transfers by $6.2 billion, conveniently providing the Pentagon the opportunity to dispatch more defense articles to Ukraine. The Inspector General reported this past June that the revaluation was not in compliance with federal or DOD guidelines. More succinctly, “DOD has limited assurance that the values it reported are correct.” 

Cruelly, the $24 billion in drawdowns is only one-quarter of the assistance provided. So far, Congress has appropriated over $110 billion in assistance to Ukraine and it has opposed calls to establish a Special Inspector of Ukraine as was done for Iraq and Afghanistan.

The inability of either institution to hold the other accountable leaves the duty to voters. Awarding one’s vote based on the timely passage of budgets and the thorough accounting of defense dollars may be the most elementary of democratic expectations, but such are the circumstances in which Americans find themselves today.