The FY 2009 Defense Appropriations Act

On September 24, 2008, the House passed a conference agreement on the fiscal year (FY) 2009 continuing resolution (HR 2638). This incorporated what was essentially a conference agreement on the FY 2009 defense appropriations act. The Senate passed the same measure on September 27, and the President signed it into law on September 30.>> The version of the defense appropriations act included in the FY 2009 continuing resolution provides a total of $512.7 billion in discretionary budget authority for the Department of Defense (DoD), about $3.4 billion less than requested by the Bush Administration. In addition, in June, Congress approved $65.9 billion to cover the costs of the military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan through the first several months of 2009. Thus, altogether a total of $578.6 billion in FY 2009 funding has been provided for DoD so far.>> At $512.7 billion, the level of funding provided for DoDs FY 2009 base defense budget (i.e., the DoD budget exclusive of war costs) represents about a 4 percent real (inflation-adjusted) increase from the FY 2008 level. It also raises funding in DoDs base budget to its highest level ever. On the other hand, even with this increase in the base defense budget and adding in the funding provided for military operations, defense spending in FY 2009 will absorb a significantly smaller share of gross domestic product (GDP) than it did during World War II, or the Korean and Vietnam Wars.>> The bullets [below] briefly summarize the major categories of funding included in the DoD appropriations act, and discuss some of the major programmatic differences between the recently approved act and administrations request.