[Before the 1949 amendment to the National Security Act,] The Army’s budget reflected its fragmented organization. There were twenty-five major “projects” or appropriations classifications based upon the technical services, each with its own individual budget, which accounted for 80 percent of the funds spent by the Army. Neither the Secretary of the Army nor the General Staff possessed any effective control over these funds…
Congress emphasized the independence of the technical services in its traditional restrictions on transferring funds among major appropriations categories. Technical service chiefs could and did transfer funds freely among their various activities, functions, and installations, but neither the Secretary nor the General Staff could legally transfer funds among the several technical services or other staff agencies without going to Congress for approval.
Given these conditions there was no rational means of determining how much the Army’s operations cost, no means of distinguishing between capital and operating expenses in most instances, and no means of determining inventory supplies on hand. Repeated requests for deficiency appropriations each year made even control by Congress over spending difficult
That was from page 273 of James E Hewes, Jr’s excellent book, From Root to McNamara: Army Organization and Administration, 1900-1963.
Never underestimate the impact of the program budget process. It was first installed in 1949, and had dramatic effects removing power from the technical services like Ordnance Bureau, Signal Corps., and so forth, and placing it in the hands of the military staffs. Most of that power on acquisitions went to the service secretaries during the Eisenhower years until the next major budget reform in 1961 with Robert McNamara.
We are still living with the McNamara acquisition system for the most part. Many people look to that time as one of great change and centralization. But the equally important reform was the 1949 amendment to the National Security Act, when Title IV installed the framework for the Program Budget and thus the power of the Comptroller. That framework was simply exerted more thoroughly by McNamara.
For more, see chapter 2 of A History of Thought in Defense Acquisition.
Leave a Reply