Defense budget topping $1 trillion ‘inevitable,’ Pentagon comptroller says

The Division of Protection’s comptroller believes it is solely a matter of time earlier than the Pentagon’s finances eclipses a trillion {dollars}.

Michael J. McCord, the Pentagon’s comptroller and chief monetary officer, informed reporters on Monday that it is “inevitable” the finances will break the $1 trillion threshold. Prime navy leaders from the Pentagon and every of the service branches spoke to reporters about President Joe Biden’s new proposed 2024 protection finances.

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“Just do the math. The budget will hit a trillion dollars probably before — even if it only grew 3% a year, the numbers are what they are,” McCord defined. “It’s inevitable. And I think … that’s gonna be a psychological, big watershed moment for many of us, some of us, but it is inevitable. And it just reflects the growth of the economy, among other things.”

Biden’s finances, launched final week, contains $842 billion for the Division of Protection and one other roughly $44 billion for non-Pentagon protection spending, totaling roughly $886 billion. The request for Pentagon spending, particularly, is a $26 billion improve from the $816 billion that was enacted within the 2023 finances, and this most up-to-date request is a tad beneath $100 billion greater than the enacted 2022 spending.

McCord defended the president’s finances request regardless of noting there have been sure issues neglected, although he defined they had been low precedence.

“Just back on the sufficiency of the top line, I would say the secretary believes this is a good number,” he stated. “He’s happy with this number, and this doesn’t buy everything that we would have liked to do. We had some other good ideas as a collective DOD group that we could not get in at this level. But we got our highest priorities in, and we’re happy with that.”

He additionally famous the share of GDP spent on protection has gone down over time.

“In terms of the top line in general, again, the exist