Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III addresses the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, June 11, 2022. (DoD photo by Chad J. McNeeley)
WASHINGTON — Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said today he supports killing the requirement for the Pentagon to send its unfunded priorities lists every year to Congress, hours after it was reported theDefense Department’s comptroller asked lawmakers to reconsider the mandate.
“I would support that,” Austin said at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, responding to a question posed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D. Mass., if he would support ending the practice.
Warren inquired if DoD has the tools it needs to address emerging threats without relying on the unfunded priority lists, to which Austin said the Pentagon does. She said that when it comes to the unfunded priorities lists, “the same commanders often repeat the same requests year after year after year, suggesting that if there were a real need, they would have worked it into the underlying budget.”
Austin’s comments come just hours after CQ Roll Call reported that comptroller Michael McCord has asked lawmakers in a letter to reconsider the unfunded priorities mandate. According to the publication, McCord sent Warren a letter asking to “reconsider the merits of this approach.”
“The current statutory practice of having multiple individual senior leaders submit priorities for additional funding absent the benefit of weighing costs and benefits across the department is not an effective way to illuminate our top joint priorities,” McCord wrote in the letter, according to CQ Roll Call.
At today’s hearing, Warren commented on McCord’s letter, saying “we don’t let any other part of federal government behave this way and it is for a good reason.” Warren has been a staunch advocate for killing the wish list mandate, questioning in the past just how important the things included in the lists really were if they weren’t included in the formal budget requests.
“The budget process requires making tough choices,” she said. “I appreciate that the secretary leads in that and I would like to submit this [the letter] for the record.”
Every year, the military services and combatant commanders are required to send their wishlists up to Capitol Hill to request funding for things that weren’t included in their formal budget requests. Supporters of the unfunded lists argue that it gives lawmakers a more honest view of what the services need.
In fiscal 2024, for example, the Marine Corps is asking Congress for a total of roughly $3.6 billion in its unfunded priorities list, including $1.7 billion to purchase another San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock. Meanwhile, Indo-Pacific Command is asking for $3.5 billion in its FY24 unfunded priorities list and the Space Force wants an additional $477.3 million.
Opponents counter that the lists are just a way for the services to go around the White House or OSD-level budget decisions and ultimately lead to bad outcomes for taxpayers.
