Budget/Appropriations

The government funding measure that passed in the House on Wednesday included $348 million for the Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS), but the money is not going to fund the program, appropriators say.

House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) said that the Appropriations bill follows the ban on funds for the missile defense program that were included in the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

MEADS has long been on the congressional chopping block, but in past years the Pentagon has been able to prevent attempts to kill the program, a joint missile defense venture between the United States, Italy and Germany.

The Obama administration has at times overstated the damage from the sequester, a senior House Democrat said Wednesday.

The White House and Pentagon have not yet released their 2014 budget, but the House and Senate Armed Services committees nevertheless kicked off their budget posture hearings on Tuesday with the military brass.

The commanders of U.S. Central Command and U.S. Special Operations Command testified before the Senate panel Tuesday, while the heads of U.S. Pacific Command and U.S. Strategic Command were before the House committee.

There’s certainly plenty to talk about — the military leaders were asked detailed questions about the impacts of sequestration and the continuing resolution, they discussed threats facing the United States, and Gen. James Mattis gave his recommendation for U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan post-2014.

But for the initial hearings, the 2014 budget was not yet on the agenda.

House Armed Services Chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) pushed his committee to support the House’s continuing resolution that includes an appropriations bill for the Pentagon.

During the committee’s first hearing Tuesday on the yet-to-be-released 2014 budget, McKeon repeatedly stressed how important the Defense appropriations bill is for the Pentagon to have some budget flexibility as it faces across-the-board cuts under sequestration.

“Now this committee, last year, completed our National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA),” McKeon said. “That bill has no effect unless the appropriations bill is passed.”

Bill gives flexibility to Pentagon, ensures FBI maintains staff, increases embassy security and gives Forest Service money to fight fires.

The Topline: The House Appropriations Committee on Monday introduced a bill that would erase one of the Pentagon’s major budget headaches.

The legislation, which will be considered this week, includes a full 2013 appropriations bill in the six-month continuing resolution (CR) that would fund the government through the end of the fiscal year.

The measure would give the Pentagon an additional $10.4 billion in its operations and maintenance accounts that would fund critical priorities like training, weapons maintenance and the defense health program that would be threatened under a full-year continuing resolution.

The money comes from more than $10 billion in reductions to personnel ($3.6 billion), research and development ($2.5 billion) and procurement ($4.2 billion), compared to 2012 funding levels.

The Pentagon has warned that the double whammy of a full-year CR combined with sequestration would be devastating for the military, and has urged Congress to at least solve the CR issue before the current resolution expires March 27.

While there is bipartisan support for the Defense appropriations bill — as well as the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs appropriations bills also in the House CR — there are still roadblocks to an agreement.

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Budget experts say the White House will have some flexibility to choose what to cut and what to save.

The message that sequestration will hurt the military has not been able to stop the across-the-board cuts.

The Topline: Competing Democratic and Republican bills to avoid sequestration failed in the Senate as expected Thursday, and nothing else is in the pipeline to stop the $85 billion in spending cuts, set to go into effect Friday.

The day that so many people said would never come — because the across-the-board cuts were so terrible that no one would let them happen — has now arrived.

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The White House has issued a new memo guiding agencies on how to implement the $85 billion in budget cuts.