A year-long continuing resolution would cause a funding crisis similar to that caused by sequestration in 2013, and it would start in May, Air Force vice chief of staff Gen. Stephen Wilson said Wednesday. Speaking at a McAleese/Credit Suisse conference in Washington, D.C., Wilson said a year-long CR would be a “$1.3 billion math problem” that would effectively cut “two months of flying hours” and sharply reduce the level of effort at depots. Some 60 “new-start programs would have to stop this summer,” Wilson said. “We would go into … a ‘only fix it if it breaks,’” mode, Wilson said. Civilian hires would have to stop, and all this would start taking effect May 1 because USAF would have to spread out the expected pain over the remaining five months of the fiscal year, he asserted. “We would be back to the same effects as the sequestration in ’13,” Wilson said. “We can’t have a year-long CR,” he said flatly. Army vice-chief Gen. Daniel B. Allyn, speaking after Wilson, said his service is “going to run out of money in July” because of the CR, “and we go downhill fast after that.” Wilson said he’s uneasy with big increases in funding coming through the overseas contingency operations accounts. “A budget that’s [mostly] OCO is hard to execute,” Wilson asserted.
Updated: This entry was updated on March 27 to accurately state the number of programs impacted by a continuing resolution.