“It’s almost double from the current level, but a lot of this is stuff that has been expected or long overdue,” said Todd Harrison, director of defense budget analysis and the Aerospace Security Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Yet even with that massive backlog, the department must also modernize its facilities to keep up with new technologies, weapons, and aircraft being introduced. The increase in funding for 2022 is needed as the department faces a $30 billion backlog in maintenance and repairs, with many of the Air Force’s facilities falling apart as funds for repairs have been limited due to budget constraints. And, in 2018, $2.38 billion was requested and $2.4 billion was enacted. In 2019, the amount requested was $2.17 billion, the amount enacted was $2.24 billion. In fiscal 2020, the department requested $2.68 billion but was appropriated $5.2 billion to aid repairs to bases heavily damaged by natural disasters. Kale III, deputy chief of staff for logistics, engineering, and force protection, told House appropriators the MILCON and family housing budget would “return to a level similar to funding requests from previous year.” The Air Force officials had previously indicated there would be a “significant” increase from 2021’s figures. And based off total dollars, it is the largest year-over-year increase in the military construction and family housing funding requests for the department in more than a decade. The 2022 figure of roughly $2.8 billion marks a 75 percent increase from the $1.6 billion enacted in 2021 and is more than double the $1.27 billion requested last year. A year after submitting its smallest military construction and family housing budget in a half-decade, the Department of the Air Force submitted a 2022 budget request that marked a return to years past-and a substantial increase overall.
0 kommentar(er)
