Defense Budget Alert

The Air Force's $165.5 billion fiscal year 2020 budget request -- a $10 billion increase over FY-19 -- would buy 48 F-35s, procure eight new F-15EX fighters, boost research and development efforts by more than $4 billion and fund the creation of a Space Force headquarters.

The Navy plans to request a $205.6 billion topline, including what is projected to be the largest requested shipbuilding budget in 20 years, according to fiscal year 2020 budget briefing slides obtained by Inside Defense.

Acting Defense Secretary Pat Shanahan is angling to become permanent Pentagon chief, with his closest supporters highlighting his role in key areas, like navigating internal politics to deliver a final Space Force proposal, helping to engineer billions in budget increases and working to pivot President Trump away from planned troop withdrawals in the Middle East that had initially alarmed military leaders.

The Defense Department will request funding for 110 new fighter aircraft in the fiscal year 2020 budget request, according to the White House, quantities that appear to align with reports that the Pentagon will seek to reduce F-35 procurement and buy eight new F-15X aircraft.

The Defense Department will request funding for 110 new fighter aircraft in the fiscal year 2020 budget request, according to the White House, quantities that appear to align with reports that the Pentagon will seek to reduce F-35 procurement and buy eight new F-15X aircraft.

The Government Accountability Office recently found that the Pentagon has returned more than $80 billion in canceled funds to the U.S. Treasury since fiscal year 2013, drawing criticism from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who says the unspent cash raises questions about defense budgets that continue to climb year after year.

The Defense Department is signaling it may break with decades of precedent and reprogram $2.5 billion to build President Trump's wall on the southern border without the approval of Congress, a move lawmakers say could imperil billions in annual budgetary flexibility granted to the Pentagon.

Pentagon leaders are meeting this week to address how the military services would finance construction of a southern border wall, which is set to require $3.6 billion in diverted military construction funds following the president's national emergency declaration.

Part of President Trump's plan to use Defense Department funds to construct a wall on the southwestern border is likely to require congressional approval, meaning Democrats would have the power to block it at the committee level.