$11 Billion for Defense Is About to Vanish

The Wall Street Journal | Rep. Mike Gallagher

My Fires Act would use the money against the Chinese threat.

At midnight Saturday, absent a continuing-resolution agreement, the U.S. government will shut down. Another self-destructive event is set to occur at the same time: Nearly $11 billion will disappear from the Defense Department’s hands. 

This isn’t a new problem. In the last decade, more than 125 billion defense dollars have evaporated as a result of outdated purchasing processes that aren’t in sync with appropriations timelines. If defense appropriations aren’t spent by the end of the fiscal year, they expire. The money is held in abeyance for five years, where it can be used to pay old or unexpected bills but is rarely used. On the last day of the abeyance period, the money goes back to the Treasury, where it feeds the mandatory-spending welfare state. 

As our military sends badly needed dollars back to the Treasury, our greatest adversary, the Chinese Communist Party, is engaged in the largest sustained peacetime military buildup since World War II. Meanwhile, the Pentagon orders fewer long-range fires and ship-killing missiles than can be produced, lacks the capacity to surge production, and is dealing with a $19 billion backlog of foreign military sales items for Taiwan. The military can’t afford to lose nearly $11 billion in buying power. That is why I introduced the Funding Indo-Pacific Readiness and Enhancing Stockpiles Act, Fires for short. It would reroute these canceling funds to enhance near-term deterrence vis-à-vis China and prevent their misuse for nondefense purposes. But it must pass by 11:59 p.m. Saturday.

Read the full op-ed HERE.