Thursday, November 30, 2023

Report: Pentagon Facing A Funding Crisis

Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff U.S. Gen. CQ Brown, Jr. meet with the Speaker of the House Mike Johnson at the Capitol Building, Washington, D.C. Nov. 1, 2023. (DoD photo by U.S. Air Force Senior Airman Cesar J. Navarro) 

Politico: ‘We’re taking it out of hide’: Pentagon says it has no money for Middle East buildup  

Under the temporary budget, funding is frozen at the previous year’s levels. 

The Defense Department has ordered an additional aircraft carrier strike group, air defenses, fighter jets and hundreds of troops to the Middle East since the surprise terrorist attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, in an effort to prevent the conflict from spiraling into a regional war. 

The problem: Congressional dysfunction means the Pentagon has no money to pay for the buildup. 

The military, like the rest of the federal government, is operating under a temporary funding measure that freezes spending at the previous year’s levels. And because the Middle East troop movements weren’t planned, the Pentagon has had to pull money from existing operations and maintenance accounts, DOD spokesperson Chris Sherwood said. President Joe Biden signed the stopgap measure this month to keep the government open until lawmakers can agree on a full-year spending bill. 

Because DOD had to hunt for funds, that means less money for training, exercises and deployments the military had already planned for the year. Some contractual payments could be delayed, Sherwood said.  

Read more ....  

Update #1: Military to Curtail Recruiting and Duty Station Moves if Congress Resorts to a Yearlong Stopgap Budget, Joint Chiefs Chairman Warns (Military.com)  

Update #2: Top US general warns lawmakers of funding crisis (RT)  

WNU Editor: Some are not buying the Pentagon story that they are running out of money .... Pentagon enlists Politico to amplify funding woes claim (Responsible Statecraft).

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

30k for a hammer, 40k for a toilet seat. The pentagon isn’t going broke, the United States is.

Anonymous said...

THE $435 HAMMER AND $600 TOILET SEAT SCANDALS: DOES MEDIA COVERAGE OF PROCUREMENT SCANDALS LEAD TO PROCUREMENT REFORM?

What we have in 11:25 is one of WNU's nasty troll buddies from Russia.

A ship blew up in 1981. As near as they could tell it was because of a shovel. One of WNU's FSB's buddy is going to have fun with it, but that is one the FSB shits.

The shovel was off the shelf so as inexpensive as you are going to get. Only problem was it was not s special shovel. It was not nonsparking. The ship was carrying grain and handling grain in industrial quantities is dangerous.

So the lost a ship and a crew due to a shovel.

Anonymous said...

Here is a fucking headline. Brent M. Eastwood is selling copy to keep his job, so he twisted everything aound.

"It Costs $400,000 To Fix A Toilet On A Navy Aircraft Carrier"

Does is cost 400k to fix a toilet?

Or does it cost 400K to fix Collection Holding and Transfer (CHT) system that over 6,000 people use?

Dividing 400,000 by 6,000 comes out to about $67 per person.
(^ Don't try long division at home if you are a humanities major)

Is $67 per person for sanitation too much? You tell me.

Actually $400,000 divided by 6,012 ships crew and airwing comes out to $66.54 per person. How much does the average municipality spend per person? Do they have to work in a saltwater or corrosive environment?

Using acid cakes to get rid of clogs has been used for decades. CHT systems have had problems for decades.

It could be worse. It could be the Kutsenov aka SS Neversail.

Everyone in the US loves the Kutsenov. For real, not a joke. I know, I do.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Carl_Vinson

Anonymous said...

I have a #trillion dollar A YEAR budget and I need more.

This makes perfect sense.

Fewer guns and more butter, please.

Anonymous said...

More Russian troll shittery.

(1) The defense budget is not 1 trillion. It is 761 billion. So you are off by 3rd (~33%).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_highest_military_expenditures

(2) If you look at by % GDP, it is 3.5%.

Russia spends 4.1% of its GDP on defense.

(3) You could look at defense spending on a per capita basis. The US protects between 800 million and 1 billion people directly. I include the population of the EU in there. Many of them are freeloads like Germany.

Russia would spend more, but they do not know how to run their economy except as 3rd world oil producing kleptocracy/cacocracy/ caca-cracy.

Anonymous said...

Russia is right up there.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/military-spending-per-capita

Two problems for Russia.
1) Not enough peeps.
2) Low productivity.

But Vladoff Putler is trying his hardest.

Mr. Nobody said...

This narrative is bullshit. McCaffery said the same thing as a commentator during the Iraq war. "The wheels are falling off in the army"


Are Generals still flying around in helos assigned to them only and in King Air aircraft? Does West Point still have a hockey team and Lacrosse team? How much are they spending on DEI programs and other non mission essential crap.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. The 600 dollar hammer meme is only a small part. The debacle with naval shipbuilding is a well know fact that costs millions if not billions of dollars. How many times has the F35 fleet had to be grounded for safety issues?

You get the picture. They have the money. It is how they are spending it.

Anonymous said...

What is amazing is that I gave the link about how government procurement works, but WNU is is too stupid to understand it or he understands it completely, but his portfolio is to troll.

(a) One important things that add to the cost of procurement are data rights.

(b) Another is that the winning bidder is often given the exclusive right to repair.

Who have to look into each one of those and debate them.

On the F22 the there was part that had stress fractures. The airmen found a fix and fixed it. But due to the contract the USAF had to rip out and wait until the prim contractor fixed it. does it make sense? Most people would say no. But if it was not in the contract how much would it cost and would anyone bid on it?

Do companies providing defense product in Russia have data rights to what they develop?

The US usually buys the data rights. The winning bidder has exclusive rights for 5 or 10 years and then the government is no longer beholden to that contractor for that tech.

Anonymous said...

Says the NATO troll who can’t see that they’re getting pummelled in Ukraine by Russias anti-woke patriots. Keep coping bubs

Anonymous said...

sounds like they need contract reform.

but since the majority of mic is a few companys who donate to political campaigns with large sums, it will not happen, since the contracts favor the mic.

Ron said...

Always crying poor because they can't keep up with the wars the black part of the military budget creates. Tell them to take money from the 50% of their black budget they won't account for in an audit.

Anonymous said...

If they do as Ron asks, Ron might have to man up and learn about Hamas' history and the Egyptian, Russian and Iranian funding of it.

Ron might have to learn how Hezbollah, the PLO and others use make their version of scouting like the Hitler Youth.

Ron cannot handle the truth. Therefore we have black budgets.

Anonymous said...

You miss Ron's point. They have the money. They are just hiding it. It is the boy crying wolf.