Length of DoD continuing resolutions and the inefficiencies created

A continuing resolution (CR) is a temporary spending legislation that allows the Department of Defense to keep funding activities despite starting the new fiscal year without a regular appropriations act. For FY 2023, DoD is 75 days into another CR as of the date of this post without regular appropriations.

I put together the recent history of DoD CRs in the figure below. A 75 day CR is nothing new. DoD is frequently hit with a CR, which on average has been 116 days between FY 2010 and FY 2022. Two times in 12 years appropriations were passed more than six months late, and four other times exceeded 5 months! Only in FY 2019 were appropriations passed on time.

Number of days the Department of Defense has been under a Continuing Resolution (FY 2010 – FY 2022)

Here’s a slice on some of the damage done from the excellent Elaine McCusker writing in Breaking Defense:

Congress has until December 16, when the current CR expires, to demonstrate it understands the daily and accumulating damage to national security caused by such temporary funding measures, and that it is willing to act to stop it.

But there have been threats of a year-long CR, but DoD could potentially get appropriations at some point sooner. Here are some of the impacts from Elaine:

Not only is CR funding woefully insufficient, the money is also in the wrong accounts…. From a strategic perspective, a long-term CR would halt procurement of the B-21 Raider and prohibit the start of the new multi-year procurement contracts for the Arleigh Burke class ships (DDG 51).

In short, a long-term CR would inhibit 192 new projects, 97 new construction and housing projects and 49 procurement rate increases.

For example, the CR would limit planned production increases for the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile-Extended Range (JASSM-ER), Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM), and Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile Extended Range (AARGM-ER). It would degrade hypersonic weapons development.

192 new starts, 97 new constructions, and 49 procurement rate increases is a lot of effort needlessly being slowed down when the Department needs to be moving faster against strategic competitors. In a follow-on post, I’ll provide some budget data analysis that estimates the magnitude of “money being in the wrong buckets” due to CRs, and how execution rates differ in CR vs. on-time environments.