Ideas
Lessons from this year’s unfunded priority lists
Just 15% of the value would go toward near-term readiness.
Elaine McCusker and John Ferrari | August 3, 2025 s
Exceeding $50 billion and arriving amid a unique federal budget cycle, this year’s unfunded priority lists from uniformed military leaders offer a lot to consider.
Let us summarize the environment in which they were submitted. In a historic first, Congress failed to pass an appropriations bill for the Defense Department for the current fiscal year. Lawmakers then passed a reconciliation bill, which gives DOD more than $150 billion in FY 2025 funding, spendable over several years. (Interestingly, the White House Office of Management and Budget characterizes most of the reconciliation funding as part of the President’s budget request for FY 2026.) While President Trump talks about nearly $1 trillion in 2026 defense funding, the actual proposed budget contains about $850 billion—less than President Biden had proposed. Finally, the likelihood of a series of continuing resolutions leading to a potential second straight year where no appropriation is passed, along with a government shutdown or two, grows with each passing day.
Against that background, four insights leap from this year’s funding-gap lists. First, the military’s leaders took a mostly unconstrained approach, listing $22 billion more in unfunded priorities than last year, thereby, in our view, fully exposing the insufficiency of the White House defense topline.
https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2025/08/lessons-years-unfunded-priority-lists/407179/?oref=d1-category-lander-river
