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DOD 2025 Budget Request Provides 4.5% Raise for Military > U.S. Department of Defense > Department of Defense News
The Department of Defense today presented details of its $849.8 billion budget request, which is expected to fund operations through fiscal year 2025.
Integrated deterrence and campaigning are big parts of the fiscal 2025 budget request. Another focus is building on the enduring advantages of the U.S. military, including its most important advantage: its people.
“Our FY25 budget request also continues our commitment to our people, the military, military families and civilians who work tirelessly to defend this nation, day in and day out,” said Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks during a briefing today at the Pentagon. “Our success in defending the nation and maintaining readiness is inextricably linked to your success.”
This budget request, Hicks said, includes a strong focus on economic stability for military personnel, military families and civilians, as well as support for military families.
“The budget funds mandatory items related to quality of life and quality of service, such as a 4.5% salary increase for our military, which is based on increases over the last three consecutive years, including the 5.2% salary increase for the last year,” she said.
Going beyond base pay, Hicks said, this latest order increases the number of child development centers, for example, and also increases the number of providers at those child development centers.
Additionally, where military personnel and their families live is of concern, she said, including ships and barracks and creating healthy, resilient communities.
“That’s why must-have items in this budget also include increases in basic housing subsidies; investments in safe, quality family housing facilities to increase deterrence and improve critical operational infrastructure; make health care, food healthier and more affordable child care – including increasing wages for child care providers and building a safer workplace – including efforts to combat sexual assault is for prevent suicide and eliminate barriers to care.”
All of these things, she said, are “indispensable” that allow the military to focus on the mission of defending the nation.
Another lasting advantage is the US defense industrial base – the collection of tens of thousands of private sector companies that provide services and equipment to the Department of Defense. The need to build the industrial base has been one of the big lessons from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and is the focus of the budget request for fiscal 2025.
“Other important investments focus on strengthening our munitions and defense industrial base and improving the resilience of our supply chains so we can deliver what our warfighters need when they need it,” Hicks said.
The fiscal year 2025 request, for example, makes “a historic investment” in the subsea industrial base to increase production and reduce delays, Hicks said.
Defending the nation includes having the best equipment and being trained and ready to use that equipment, both to deter conflict and to ensure readiness to defend if necessary.
This latest budget request also calls for $167 billion for acquisitions; $143 billion for research, development, testing and evaluation; and $339 billion for operations and maintenance – which includes training activities that keep the military ready for war fighting.
Integrated deterrence is a centerpiece of the 2022 program National Defense Strategywhich was used to develop the fiscal year 2025 budget request.
“For integrated deterrence, the fiscal year 2025 budget requests essential funds for investments in our national nuclear enterprise and missile defense, along with space capabilities, which will enable the joint force to address key modernization priorities,” said Vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Navy Admiral Christopher Grady.
The fiscal year 2025 request also continues to invest in ways to allow the department to strengthen cyberspace and long-range fires capabilities, Grady said.
This request, for example, allocates almost $50 billion to nuclear modernization, including both the Columbia-class submarine and the B-21 bomber. More than $28 billion is allocated to missile defeat and defense and more than $33 billion is directed to space capabilities.
“To support the campaign, the department is investing in operations readiness, training and maintenance initiatives, while also prioritizing exercises and experimentation that will enable the joint force to support our critical theaters, including Indo-Pacom and Europe. ”
In the campaign, the fiscal year 2025 budget allocates nearly $10 billion to the Pacific Deterrence Initiative – including for the defense of Guam – and $3.9 billion to the European Deterrence Initiative, to include support The NATO.
“We must continue to adapt, advance, and innovate with speed and scale across domains, prioritizing China as the pace challenger and Russia as the acute threat,” Grady said. “Our strategy-oriented budget does just that. It recognizes the need to invest in key areas to translate the National Defense Strategy, the National Military Strategy and the Joint Warfighting Concept into operational capabilities necessary to deter our strategic competitors. ”
Budget challenges
Although the budget request was announced today, the overall budget process remains in a state of flux. At the same time as the fiscal year 2025 request is presented to Congress, Congress continues to wrestle with the fiscal 2024 budget request and the supplemental budget to fund Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and more.
The fiscal 2024 budget was supposed to take effect on October 1, 2023, but DOD has been funded by a continuing resolution since that date. A continuing resolution continues to fund departments at the level of the previous appropriations bill. Therefore, DOD is operating under the fiscal 2023 funding level. If there is neither an appropriation bill nor a continuing resolution, the government must shut down, something that has happened three times in the last decade.
The 2025 fiscal order is also affected by the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023. That law limits discretionary spending for defense and nondefense programs in exchange for lifting the debt ceiling. This is why, for example, the salary increase for civilians in fiscal year 2025 – set at 2% – does not correspond to that of the military, which is 4.5%. This is also why the defense request does not keep up with inflation. The $850 billion request represents a 1% increase in spending, but inflation rose by about 3%.