Don’t Fund the Unfunded Unless …

Congress has received the “unfunded priorities” lists it requires annually from the military services, this time including lists from the chief of the National Guard Bureau and head of US Southern Command, but with a request not to substitute items on it for those in the proposed President’s Budget. The lists, which recently started circulating, were covered by a March 27 letter from Defense Secretary Ash Carter saying he doesn’t “endorse” any of the items on the lists “unless enacted funding exceeds the amount requested” in the Fiscal 2016 defense budget. “We have made extensive efforts to thoroughly assess, prioritize, and balance force capacity, capability, and readiness” in the budget, Carter said, and “any extra program inserted” will knock out one “we deemed more important, with ripple effects across the rest of the budget.” The Army’s list amounted to $7.6 billion worth of gear and other items; the Navy and Marines Corps’, about $2.6 billion and $2.1 billion, respectively, and the Air Force’s was $5.5 billion. (See more on the Fiscal 2015 unfunded priorities.)