Pentagon slashes weapons programs to stay under debt deal
The department will take a $10B cut under congressionally mandated spending caps this year.
Sailors assigned to the Virginia-class fast attack submarine USS Hyman G. Rickover (SSN 795) man the ship.
The Defense Department plans to cut F-35 fighter jets, an attack submarine, Army helicopters and drones and Air Force overhead as it seeks to stay under the spending caps. | U.S. Navy photo by John Narewski
By LARA SELIGMAN, CONNOR O’BRIEN, LEE HUDSON and PAUL MCLEARY
02/21/2024 02:37 PM EST
The Biden administration struck a deal with congressional leaders last year to limit defense spending. And at the Pentagon, the knives are out.
The Defense Department plans to cut F-35 fighter jets, an attack submarine, Army helicopters and drones and Air Force overhead as it seeks to stay under the spending caps.
The adjustments come as the Pentagon plans to submit a budget request next month that funds the department at just under $850 billion in fiscal 2025, according to two U.S. officials and a congressional aide who, like others quoted for this story, were granted anonymity to discuss the military’s blueprint. That total is DOD’s portion of the federal spending levels laid out in the debt limit agreement President Joe Biden signed into law last summer, which caps overall national defense spending at $895 billion for the coming fiscal year.
Compared with DOD’s projected levels for fiscal 2025 outlined in its last budget submission, the $850 billion total amounts to a $10 billion cut, or more than 1 percent of the department’s budget.
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/02/21/pentagon-slashes-weapons-programs-debt-deal-00142465
