DoD oversight is intimately linked with appropriations structure

… it is time to modernize the way the DoD is resourced with simpler, responsive and flexible appropriations that meet congressional oversight requirements. The DoD currently operates in the worst of both worlds, producing reams of detailed budget justification documents and meeting numerous notification and reporting requirements, yet repeatedly falling short of the transparency Congress is seeking.

For example, the FY21 defense authorization and appropriations bills and reports contain numerous provisions expressing dissatisfaction with the budget justification documentation that was designed to meet congressional needs. Time and money are being spent to provide information that is not useful.

That was Elaine McCusker in Defense News, “Former Pentagon comptroller: Observations and opportunities for America’s defense budget.” This might not sound like much, but revamping the appropriation structure for the first time in over 60 years would be a big deal.

The structure of appropriations is intimately linked with the style of oversight. For example, a shift from organization/object budgeting to program budgets is a shift in focus of analysis from managing people and types of spending to managing the outcomes of military policy (e.g., a weapons platform). It doesn’t get rid of the accounting requirements associated with transactions and audits (people still have to be paid, contracts filled), but it adds to them another layer of complexity in aligning with an arbitrary division of military programs.

And so perhaps the complications of programming the budget — observable in the DoD’s continued failure to pass an audit and perennial bouts with cost growth — exceeds the decision utility offered. I would go further and say that programming the budget creates inferior outcomes due to reliance on flaky predictions and decision lock-in.

I think the natural idea is to consolidate programs into capability portfolios, or something to that effect, and provide oversight of broader requirements. The portfolios will in the same sense be arbitrary, but could be a good way of doing things. This thinking distracts from the real issue: budgets are a future plan. What is needed is tighter feedback loops with real products and operational tests. Oversight should be in what is and what was, not casting speculative judgment on what will be.