It’s 
budget-release day. The Obama Administration on Monday morning will submit its $614 billion defense spending request for Fiscal 2013 to Congress. The Defense Department’s embargo on publicly releasing the budget details is scheduled to lift by noon East Coast time. Stay tuned for updates after that occurs. Here’s what we already know:
- DOD’s seeks $525 billion in its base budget and $88 billion for overseas contingency operations including the war in Afghanistan in Fiscal 2013. (See Pentagon budget fact sheet.)
- Those totals are $6 billion less and $27 billion less, respectively, than the $531 billion and $115 billion in enacted appropriations for the base budget and OCO in Fiscal 2012.
- At this time last year, DOD projected that it would request $571 billion for its base budget in Fiscal 2013, $46 billion more than the actual Fiscal 2013 request.
- The $46 reduction reflects the first installment of the $259 billion in cuts that DOD must absorb between Fiscal 2013 and Fiscal 2017 under the 2011 Budget Control Act.
- Overall, DOD must shed a total of $487 billion between Fiscal 2012 and Fiscal 2021 under the BCA.
- If the BCA’s sequestration clause takes effect next year, DOD would stand to lose nearly $1 trillion in total between Fiscal 2012 and Fiscal 2021.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey on Tuesday morning are scheduled to testify on the budget request before the Senate Armed Services Committee. They will then go before the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday morning to do the same.