New Pentagon Budget – Hypersonic Weapons, Lasers & AI

​

President’s Fiscal 2019 Defense Budget Request Calls for $686.1 Billion

By Jim Garamone- DoD News, Defense Media Activity

WASHINGTON, Feb. 12, 2018 – The president’s fiscal year 2019 defense budget request calls for $686.1 billion in spending and will reverse years of military erosion, defense officials said

The budget also calls for a 2.6 percent raise for service members. There is no raise in the budget for civilian employees.

The base budget is set for $617 billion and the overseas contingency operations fund is set for $69 billion. Overall, the request is 3.1 percent of gross domestic product — a figure near historic lows, Defense Department Comptroller and Chief Financial Officer David Norquist said.

The budget builds on the bipartisan budget act passed last week. “We are appreciative of Congress raising the caps and ending the destructive effects of sequestration-level funding,” Norquist said during a Pentagon news conference. “And we are committed to the reforms necessary to be good stewards of taxpayers’ money.”

The budget is a strategy-driven document that stresses the nation’s primary goals: to defend the homeland, make the military more lethal, and to strengthen old alliances and build new ones.