Pentagon may shift some war costs to base fiscal 2010 budget

Pentagon officials would like to set the fiscal 2010 defense budget between $535 billion and $540 billion, which could include some war costs that have been paid for with supplemental appropriations, according to sources who are tracking the Obama administration's budget negotiations.

OMB had set $527 billion -- the same amount projected for fiscal 2010 last year by the Bush administration -- as its basis for budget negotiations with the Pentagon.

Andrew Krepinevich, president of the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said Thursday that the new point of negotiation, at least within the Pentagon, is a bit higher than the mark laid down by OMB.

"Is that just additional funding or are we now taking some of the things that are in the supplemental that people have always argued ought to be in the base budget and moving them back in?" Krepinevich asked. "And is that what's going to fill the extra $8 [billion] to $13 billion addition if, in fact, that's what's negotiated?"

Other defense sources monitoring the negotiations said the additional $8 billion to $13 billion in defense funding under consideration are war costs that would be migrated to the base budget.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said repeatedly that he wants to move more war money into the base budget. That would be received favorably on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers in both parties have argued that after seven years of war the military's operational costs are no longer emergency expenses.

Gates said Tuesday that budget pressures had made it difficult to move a significant portion of the war bill into the base budget. But he later called the $527 billion "a place to begin a dialogue," adding that there are questions about whether certain items belong in the supplemental or the base budget.

Should the White House agree to boost the Pentagon's top line by moving war costs to the base budget, it would still cover only a fraction of war spending anticipated for next year. For fiscal 2009, for example, Congress has approved $66 billion in war funding, with another $70 billion to $80 billion expected later this year.

The Pentagon would not comment Thursday on the continuing budget negotiations.

"We are still talking to OMB and still not talking numbers in the press," said Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell.

An outline of the fiscal 2010 defense budget is expected on Capitol Hill this month after President Obama addresses Congress on Feb. 24. But lawmakers will not see the details of the budget until late March or early April.

House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee ranking member C.W. (Bill) Young, R-Fla., said Thursday that he has received very little feedback from the Pentagon on the size and scope of the budget request under consideration. "No one has been willing or able to give us an answer yet," he said.