There are several ways in which Congress is a major impediment to an improved defense investment process. First, congressional committees are loath to shed their ability to direct spending at a fairly granular level in the investment accounts (procurement and research, development, testing, and evaluation). Second, for better or worse, Congress does not always trust the Department of Defense to make good decisions and frequently rolls back attempts by the Pentagon to lean forward with new technologies and new procurement processes. Lastly, Congress continues to fail to execute its basic responsibility of funding the government on time (see below chart), leading to increasingly lengthy continuing resolutions that create major obstacles for the effective distribution of funds. The first two issues can and should be accounted for in contriving the Planning, Programming, Budgeting and Execution Commission’s reforms, but the last can only be addressed through congressional reform.
That was from a nice article by Matt Vallone at War on the Rocks: Budget reform can’t succeed without Congress. Let’s take those points one at a time.
First, Matt showed a chart of continuing resolutions over time, which grew from 20 days in 1999 to over 100 days on average by FY 2022. Certainly CRs are damaging to defense acquisition, hindering any new starts or terminations and simply spending the same dollars in the same ways as last year.
But CRs shouldn’t be as big of an issue if DoD adopts budget portfolios. Within each portfolio, DoD should have more execution flexibility to make tradeoffs while a CR is on-going. The ability to do new starts, however, would require a change to the reprogramming rules (and should be considered for portfolio management).
But the real point is that CRs might not be as prevalent in a portfolio world because many substantive decisions are removed from appropriations (corresponding to traditional agency management prior to PPBS). Here’s Thomas Murphy in an excellent 1969 paper: Congress, PPBS, and Reality.
If PPBS leads to greater efficiency and better informed decisions for the allocation of national resources, why should Congress oppose it? Basically, the reason is that traditionally, Congress has not had to face all the substantive issues in order to make a budgetary decision. Instead, it could weigh the evidence in appropriations hearings and then issue an across-the-board edict for a five or ten percent cut in “administrative overhead” without passing any judgment on specific programs. The Congressman could maintain his image as guardian of the public purse and did not have to go on record as opposing any particular program dear to the hearts of at least some of his constituents.
Yet this also leads to a problem: Congress has become accustom to directing dollars to states for their own interests. When PPBS was initially created, Congress was worried about it because teams of experts would come up with optimal program plans that they, the members of Congress, wouldn’t have the level of information to argue against. Congress simply ignored the program structure in the 1960s.
But it was always clear that if a fight came down between the experts and the politicians, there was no doubt that politicians would win. And so Congress learned to use PPBS for their own purposes.
Like Matt, I believe better transparency and oversight is the balancing function should Congress be willing to allow portfolio budgets:
The commission should consider giving appropriators more transparency and better communication around programs in these funding structures. This could create a virtuous cycle of increased congressional engagement leading to an easier transition from small-dollar investment vehicles to fully funded programs. As an example, the Department of Defense could report to Congress on significant Phase III Small Business Innovation Research awards and on a regular basis ask to update the budget request with items that they believe should migrate from these contract vehicles into a formal program of record.
That’s an interesting idea on the SBIR Phase IIIs. And this gets to the fear that DoD makes terrible program choices that end in boondoggles. Matt cites the F-22, Comanche, LCS, and DDG-1000 as examples of DoD negligence leading to increased Congressional micromanagement.
But those programs happened under the PPBS-style of congressional management! They were not “DoD decisions” absent Congressional involvement. It’s hard for Congress to play the oversight role when it also makes program decisions on behalf of DoD.
Moreover, those program choices did not happen within a portfolio construct where incremental decisions can occur. They were a consensus based plan where dozens of offices levied their opinions and requirements, but none of them had any responsibility to execute. By integrating decision-making within a portfolio and allowing for incremental (as opposed to lifecycle) choices, the boondoggles of the past may not have happened (or, if they did, would have been caught by transparent oversight earlier).
A lot is missing in this argument, but that’s all for now!
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