'Army Has It Worst' In Budget Crunch: DoD Comptroller Robert Hale [View all]

http://defense.aol.com/2013/03/12/army-has-it-worst-in-budget-crunch-dod-comptroller-robert-hal/?icid=trending1



'Army Has It Worst' In Budget Crunch: DoD Comptroller Robert Hale
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
Published: March 12, 2013

ASHINGTON: The current fiscal crisis slams the entire military, keeping aircraft carriers in port and fighter pilots on the ground for lack of funds, but of all the services, said Pentagon comptroller Robert Hale today, "the Army has by far the worst problem."

That's because the Army faces a unique triple-barreled budget problem, known with grim humor as "6-6-6" because each part takes $6 billion out of Army readiness accounts: the automatic cuts known as the sequester, which began March 1st; the Continuing Resolution now funding the government, which continues spending at 2012 levels without any flexibility to start new programs or even adjust existing ones; and the shortfall in wartime supplemental funding (called OCO, for Overseas Contingency Operations) caused by unexpectedly high costs in Afghanistan.

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And Congress doesn't seem to be addressing the shortfall in war funding. Said Hale, "there's nothing in either of the bills" so far -- though he cautioned that his staff is still going over the Senate language made public late yesterday. So, Hale said, "we will have to look for other approaches. It just depends, frankly, on what happens with the Hill. If they pass [a defense] appropriations bill, I'll assume we'll look for reprogramming" -- i.e. authority to transfer money from one account to another, on a small scale and with Congressional approval. But the reprogramming relief-valve has strict legal limits, Hale warned.

~snip~

The force won't return to the "Hollow Army" days of the 1970s in terms of its people or its equipment, Martz said. As manpower declines, the Army has pledged to dissolve brigades rather than leave them on the books but cripplingly undermanned, as they were after Vietnam -- although sequestration may require it to cut 180,000 personnel instead of 80,000 by 2017. Vehicles and weapons are being "reset" and refurbished as they come out of Afghanistan, so the current hardware is pretty healthy.