Congress will soon have to decide whether to approve the administration’s recent $5.6 billion request for additional Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) funding to fight ISIS.
The contingency fund generally supports activities related to immediate war efforts and is exempt from federal spending caps. The new request includes money for U.S. military advisors and to equip and train Iraqi and Kurdish soldiers.
Congress will soon have to decide whether to approve the administration’s recent $5.6 billion request for additional Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) funding to fight ISIS.
The contingency fund generally supports activities related to immediate war efforts and is exempt from federal spending caps. The new request includes money for U.S. military advisors and to equip and train Iraqi and Kurdish soldiers.
In a new blog post, Concord Coalition Policy Analyst Chad Laurie notes that the request for additional war funding comes as the military continues to struggle to balance priorities and keep within the spending caps set by the Budget Control Act of 2011.
Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel. for example, just announced a new initiative to invest more into the U.S. nuclear force without specifying how the new spending would be paid for.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have exacerbated the difficulties, Laurie writes, by blocking the military from enacting compensation reform and retiring some aging weapons systems.
Lawmakers should be willing to allow agencies throughout the federal government, including the Pentagon, to implement reforms to reduce unnecessary spending.
