Spending bill spares major weapons programs from big cuts

The Defense appropriations conference report that passed the House earlier Monday provides a record $453.5 billion for the military in fiscal 2006, with the Defense Department's big ticket procurement programs emerging largely unscathed by major budget cuts.

The report, which passed the House at 5:04 a.m., is pending before the Senate. Perhaps the biggest winner during conference negotiations was the Navy's next-generation DD(X) destroyer program, which House appropriators had recommended slashing by $1 billion.

But with the support of Senate Appropriations Chairman Thad Cochran, R-Miss., conferees ultimately opted to approve all of the Bush administration's $1.8 billion request for the program. The Navy intends to build many of the destroyers in Mississippi, Cochran's home state.

In another nod to the struggling shipbuilding industry, conferees included $440 million to buy two additional Littoral Combat Ships in fiscal 2006. Overall, the agreement provides $9.4 billion for new ship construction and conversions, an increase of $306 million above the president's request.

Meanwhile, conferees agreed to cut $240 million from the $3.2 billion requested for the massive Future Combat Systems program, the core of the Army's technology transformation efforts. House appropriators, concerned with program management, had favored a steep $449 million cut, while their Senate colleagues wanted to trim only $100 million from the program.

The Defense spending bill matches the administration's $878 million request to buy 240 new Stryker vehicles, which have been used extensively in Iraq.

The conference agreement also includes the total $3.2 billion sought for the procurement of 25 F-22A Raptor fighter jets for the Air Force and $2.7 billion for 42 F/A-18 jets for the Navy. In addition, the agreement restores funding for the C-130J cargo aircraft, initially targeted for cancellation by the Pentagon, and meets the president's request for $3.5 billion for the C-17 larger cargo aircraft.

But the Air Force and Navy's Joint Strike Fighter program took a $232 million hit, in part because of development delays for the first production aircraft. Conferees agreed to approve most of the administration's request for space programs, but slashed two struggling systems, Space Radar and the Transformational Satellite Communications, by $126 million and $400 million, respectively.