Pentagon 'big winner' in $1T omnibus bill | TheHill - 0 views
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The Pentagon and the defense industry came out of the $1 trillion omnibus spending bill as a big winner, experts and lawmakers said Tuesday, a day after the bill was released. “The big winner is the Defense Department. They should be breaking out champagne in the Pentagon,” said Gordon Adams, a defense budget expert and former Clinton official.The omnibus spending bill provides about $497 billion for the Defense Department in 2014 — about the same as in 2013. But the Pentagon also received $85.2 billion in overseas contingency operations (OCO) for the war in Afghanistan, roughly $5 billion more than it requested for 2014.Before last month’s budget deal that relieved $22.4 billion in sequestration cuts, the 2014 defense budget would have been around $475 billion. The OCO funding, which Adams said is the “cherry on top of the dessert,” can be used to pay for operations and maintenance in the base budget and help restore military readiness lost in previous years. Fiscal watchdog and anti-war groups criticized the $5 billion increase from the Pentagon's request in OCO funding as a “slush fund to pad the department’s budget and avoid spending reductions,” especially with the winding down of the Afghan War.
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The defense industry was also a winner in the omnibus spending bill, Adams said. All major weapons systems procurement requests were fully-funded, including the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter — the Pentagon’s most expensive weapons system in history. Also fully funded were the Army’s M1 Abrams tank program, and the Navy’s shipbuilding plans for eight new ships. Israel is also a winner in the omnibus spending bill, with money fully provided for the Arrow, David’s Sling, and the Iron Dome rocket defense systems.
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While lawmakers touted the completed spending bill as a win for nearly everyone, there were a few losers. One of the most notable losers included the Pentagon’s research and development projects, which received $7 billion less than last year.In addition, the defense space program and the procurement for the E-2D Advanced Hawkeye program were delayed. Also, funds for the Afghan National Security Forces is about half as much as the White House requested, Adams said.
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The War Party wins again. Spending cuts will come out of non-defense branches of government. Meanwhile, the Judicial Branch is nearly flat on its back because of sequestration. Judicial spending before sequestration was only 0.19 per cent of federal spending (19 cents of each $100) but $350 million got chopped by sequestration. The result: things like massive delays in court proceedings and a 35 per cent cut in personnel in the Federal Defenders office, a loss of institutional knowledge that will never be recovered.