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What new DoD budget numbers really mean

Gordon Adams, a professor of international relations at American University and former associate director at the Office of Management and Budget, joined In Dept...

Federal News Network Staff

January 27, 2012 9:34 pm

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The Defense Department’s new budget plan — a request of $525 billion next year — represents a 1 percent budget cut.

Gordon Adams, a professor of international relations at American University and former associate director at the Office of Management and Budget, joined In Depth with Francis Rose to discuss what the numbers and changes really mean

In a blog post, Adams called the budget proposal “promising, but dangerous.”

“The promise is the indication that the big ship DOD is slowly turning toward the future, though the strategic framework for that shift remains to be filled in,” Adams wrote.

As for the danger:

“The danger is that the long term budget trajectory the Secretary forecast is unrealistically high,” Adams explained. “Trimming (and it is “trimming”) $487 billion from a large defense plan over the next decade leaves Pentagon planners with the unrealistic expectation that, after the current and next year, budget growth will return, barely at the rate of inflation. That expectation will lead to unrealistic planning for the future: the out-years of this budget are completely at risk.”

This story is part of Federal News Radio’s daily DoD Report. For more defense news, click here.