DoD Budget: Fiscal 2013-17 Highlights, Numbers & Unfolding Events

Latest updates[?]: In the anticlimax of the year, President Obama signs the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act (HR 933), which finally wraps up US defense funding legislation for fiscal year 2013.

On normal years the US Department of Defense goes through a complicated-enough process to establish and finalize its budget. But whereas FY 2012 offered a welcome return to normalcy after a very long continuing resolution, the budgeting cycle for fiscal year 2013 unfolded in an unproductive, fractious political environment.

As fiscal year 2012 came to a close Congress bought time with a continuing resolution. And as the new civil year started, Congress begrudgingly applied a short-term patch to avoid the fiscal cliff, while the President eventually signed a FY13 authorization bill containing language he had threatened to veto for months. By March 2013 everyone seemed to capitulate to wrap up appropriations for the rest of the year. But FY13 appropriations ended up including sequestration, an outcome that few had predicted since the Budget Control Act was passed in 2011. The FY14 budget cycle then started late, with only dim hope of a more reasonable outcome.

Rapid Fire March 27, 2013: Get Better at Better Buying Power

• The US Defense Acquisition University will host a workshop on (Better Buying Poker) Better Buying Power in Fort Belvoir, VA, on April 9. On the agenda: should cost, data rights, performance-based logistics.

• Australia’s phased withdrawal from Afghanistan will involve the closure of a base at Tarin Kowt and the return of about 1,000 troops by the end of 2013, out of a total of around 1,600. Press conference transcript | News Limited.