Long-Term Implications of Current Defense Plans: Summary Update for Fiscal Year 2008
Abstract
Decisions about national defense that are made today whether they involve weapon systems, military compensation, or numbers of personnel can have long-lasting effects on the composition of U.S. armed forces and the budgetary resources needed to support them. In the past five years, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has published a series of reports projecting the resources that might be needed over the long term to carry out the plans in the Administration's then-current Future Years Defense Program (FYDP).1 Prepared by the Department of Defense (DoD), the FYDP is submitted to the Congress each fiscal year as part of the President's budget request. This paper, like CBO's previous reports, provides long term projections (in this case, through 2025) of the potential costs of DoD's current plans that is, those plans contained in the 2008 FYDP, which covers fiscal years 2008 through 2013.2 The 2008 FYDP reflects changes to the department's programs and priorities between February 2006 and February 2007. The 2008 FYDP and CBO's projections of its long-term implications both exclude potential future supplemental or emergency appropriations, although the President has indicated that at least $189 billion in such appropriations will be needed to pay for military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other purposes related to the war on terrorism in fiscal year 2008. The overall budgetary implications of DoD's current plans remain similar to those described in CBO's previous projections: Carrying out plans proposed in the FYDP would require sustaining annual defense funding over the long term at higher real (inflation-adjusted) levels than those that have occurred since the mid-1980s.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Dec 01, 2007
- Accession Number
- ADA474858
Entities
Organizations
- Congressional Budget Office