Some experts are skeptical that the Defense Department will spend the funds effectively.
The Senate Appropriations Committee’s new Defense spending bill would create a $1.1 billion fund for yet-to-be-determined programs that build military “readiness,” a word that has come to mean just about anything in the Pentagon budget.
The fund, created at a time when military preparedness levels are on the rise after nearly two decades at war, would come with very few strings or stipulations, an unusual move for appropriators who typically guard their power of the purse.
The Pentagon must proportionately divide this money among the military’s active and reservist components’ operations accounts. And Defense Department officials would have to notify Congress about how they’ll spend the money no less than 30 days before they do so. The money could then be spent as planned unless an appropriator objects.
View the complete September 16 article by John M. Donnelly on The Roll Call website here.