The Congressional Budget Office has said the increasing costs of weapon systems, operation and maintenance as well as military compensation have become “internal pressures†within the Defense Department’s budget and have “exacerbated†the discrepancy between DoD’s Future Years Defense Program and spending caps in the Budget Control Act.CBO said in a report released Wednesday the average development and procurement costs for weapon systems are between 20 percent and 30 percent higher than the Pentagon’s initial estimates.
David Mosher, assistant director for national security at CBO, presented the report at the Professional Services Council’s 2016 Vision Federal Market Forecast Conference.
CBO also predicts the U.S. Navy’s shipbuilding plan for 2016 to cost more than the service branch’s estimates and would fail to reach its inventory goal for some types of vessels.
The report showed that military personnel costs posted a 46 percent increase in DoD’s inflation-adjusted base budget between FY 2000 and FY 2014, while operation and maintenance spending saw a 34 percent increase and acquisition costs recorded a 25 percent rise over the 14-year period.
According to the report, annual increases in uniformed personnel’s basic pay surpassed by more than 5 percent the percentage increase in the employment cost index from 2001 through 2010.
Basic housing allowance accounted for 24 percent of $44.6 billion in total growth in military personnel costs from 2000 to 2014, followed by basic pay at 18 percent and Tricare for Life Accrual program at 16 percent, according to the congressional budget watchdog.
