Tag Archives: defense spending

Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee (HASC), said he wants to find new approaches on how the Department of Defense (DOD) can improve the way it spends its funding. “There are not enough incentives right now in the way we spend money at the Pentagon to save money and get the best value for what you’re doing. We need to change that,” Smith said.

A new Professional Services Council (PSC) report projects continued rise in federal investments in cybersecurity and artificial intelligence initiatives, including robotic process automation and machine learning. The council’s report anticipates that spending on cloud platforms will remain flat, while DoD could see a 2 percent increase in its topline budgets. 

The White House plans to send to Congress its proposed budget for fiscal year 2021 on Feb. 10, Defense News reported Monday.

As the Department of Defense’s spending on classified programs rises, defense contractors have reported increases in revenues related to “restricted” projects as reflected in their regulatory filings and annual reports, Defense One reported Wednesday.

The U.S. Army requires Congress approval to move forward with a potential five-year, $1 billion investment in data, artificial intelligence and cloud, FCW reported Tuesday.

The Senate Appropriations Defense subcommittee passed a defense policy bill to allocate $1 billion in additional funds for hypersonic programs for fiscal year 2020, C4ISRNET reported Wednesday.

Wesley Hallman, senior vice president for strategy and policy at the National Defense Industrial Association, has said that the recently signed 2019 Bipartisan Budget Act may lead to better government-industry collaboration.

The Senate voted 67-28 to pass a two-year budget deal to increase defense spending by approximately $45B, Defense News reported Thursday. The $2.7T deal would raise defense funding from spending levels of $716B to $738B in 2020 to $740B in 2021. It also includes an agreement to exclude “poison pill” riders that limit the administration’s ability to direct funds toward the border wall project. 

A Department of Defense report says the number of weapons and ammunition suppliers has dropped despite DoD’s increased spending on such equipment since 2016, Defense News reported Thursday. “Even in the defense services market, which is traditionally considered to have lower barriers to entry, supplier counts are shrinking,” according to DoD’s Industrial Capabilities report released in May.

Russ Vought, acting director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, said President Trump plans to propose a fiscal 2020 budget to fund defense and national security priorities without raising the spending caps. Vought wrote in a commentary posted Monday for RealClearPolitics that the proposed budget will designate additional defense resources as overseas contingency operations funds, which are not subject to the budget caps.