Service May Look To Bailouts From Pentagon, Congress

Like the rest of us, the United States Air Force is learning it needs to live within its means... and money really doesn't grow on trees after all.

Over the next six years, the Air Force is looking at a budgetary shortfall of some $100 billion, according Defense News, forcing it to look to Congress and the Pentagon to keep some of its major programs, such as the production of C-17s, going in 2009.

"It is a very bad year for us," one senior Air Force official. "We feel that we may get something from the Pentagon leadership for being good kids. The biggest problem is we can't afford everything that we're trying to do and some things are going to have to slow down."

The Pentagon was, no doubt, shuddering at the services' draft 2009-2015 budgets submitted to the office of Defense Secretary Robert Gates. The proposals will be reviewed through the end of this year and become part of the Bush administration's 2009 defense spending request to be sent to Congress in February.

"Everyone has got some balancing to do and so do we," an official said. "We're working on a new bomber, want more F-22s, JSF (F-35) and new tankers, and we're trying to balance our air mobility programs. The C-17 and the C-130 lines are hot, and we need a strategy to integrate them as much as possible."

In 2009, the Air Force's budget will run about $115 billion. It can afford some individual programs like buying more C-17s or F-22s, but keeping them in production while trying to keep other programs going, like developing a new bomber and acquiring new tankers, is proving to be dicey at best.

Global operations such as the Iraq and Afghanistan wars bear the brunt of draining resources necessary for modernization, says Defense News.

The Air Force and Navy are said to have shouldered most of the responsibility for budget cuts to cover the cost of the wars. Air Force Gen. Michael "Buzz" Moseley launched a plan in 2005 to retire several hundred airplanes and cut tens of thousands of personnel to save money for needed modernization programs.

But any savings realized from that plan and subsequent money saving efforts have effectively been eaten by the Pentagon, to pay for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Why are the Navy and Air Force asked to foot the lion's share of the bill? Defense News reports the Army and Marines are running higher than the additional spending appropriated by Congress.

"The Air Force has definitely been a major help over the past few years to ease the burden of the Army and Marines, but you only have so much money," said a senior Pentagon official. "When you see the guys in the field, it's hard not to say, 'OK, whatever you need,' and that's what's happening.

"But we also need to keep our eye on the future, and the Air Force plays a very important part in a peer context and has legitimate needs. You have to figure out how you do your job within the context of the overall national picture.

"The border patrol guys have requirements that are as important to national security as ours, and it's going to cost $150 billion to repair our bridges. Where will the money come from?"

FMI: www.af.mil