NDIA:Future defense spending needs ‘smarter, not richer’ thinking
By National Defense Industrial Agency
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ARLINGTON, VA – Several factors will limit projected defense spending — and hence budgets — in the out-years of the defense plans, and defense officials and Congress will need to think “smarter, not richer” in how they approach funding, Arnold Punaro said Wednesday while accepting the 2018 James Forrestal Industry Leadership Award from the National Defense Industrial Association.
“Due to the changing political landscape, towering deficits and growing impact of entitlements, we will not see the necessary sizable, real growth budgets in the out-years of the five-year defense plan as we have in FY18 and FY19,” Punaro said. “As a result, we need to think smarter, not richer,” he said, adding Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan and John Gibson, the Defense Department’s chief management officer, “are leading the charge on implementing Sec. [James] Mattis’ high-priority reform agenda.”
Punaro also said, “Today’s funding supports a force that is 50 percent smaller, and in some cases less ready and less capable. I have called this the ever-shrinking fighting force. This must be reversed, and Congress is supporting Sec. Mattis’ efforts to increase the size, readiness and lethality of our wartime forces.”
