Bush to Boost Military Budget by 4.8%

WASHINGTON — Seeking to bolster and reshape the Army and Marine Corps but hold the line on spending for new weapons systems, the Bush administration will ask Congress on Monday to boost Pentagon spending to $419.3 billion in 2006, an increase of 4.8%.

The budget request, which will not include money for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, reflects a mandate by the White House to cut spending on military programs not directly related to the war in Iraq or the fight against terrorism.

Last February, the Pentagon estimated it would need $424 billion in 2006 and $445 billion in 2007. The request being presented Monday is for less than that estimate, but is still about $19.2 billion more than the Pentagon’s $400.1-billion budget this year.

But the Pentagon does not plan to stick to its spending diet over the long term, according to documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times and analysts familiar with the budget.

The Pentagon’s request for procurement money, used for new technology and weapons, is a relatively modest $78 billion for next year -- a cut of $100 million from its current budget. But that number would climb rapidly in future years, to $118.6 billion in 2011.

Overall, Pentagon spending would hit $502.3 billion in 2011, under current forecasts. The reduced rate of growth in 2006 is part of a White House effort to shrink the federal deficit.

“The Pentagon did this in response to pressure from the White House to find savings in the immediate term for deficit reduction,” said Loren Thompson, a military analyst with the Lexington Institute, a think tank based in Arlington, Va. “They are proposing to increase weapons purchases by huge amounts in future years in order to obscure the fact that they are backing away from their investment plan in the near term.”

The request will be part of a roughly $2.5-trillion federal budget request the president plans to announce Monday. It comes in addition to the $25 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan already appropriated by Congress. And the White House soon will request another $80 billion in emergency spending for the mounting costs of the wars.

The 2006 budget includes funding to restructure the Army and add more combat and support units to the Marine Corps. It would also increase money spent on Special Operations forces. The Army is reshaping its fighting force into brigades, each fully equipped to handle a wide range of threats, rather than traditional and much larger divisions specializing in different fighting tasks.

Budget experts said there were few big surprises in the 2006 Defense figures, and said spending would still increase, even if at a slower pace.

“It’s pretty much what people expected,” said Steven Kosiak of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Washington think tank. “The Defense top line is still on an upward trajectory.”

Details of the supplemental war-funding measure, expected next week, will reveal additional Bush administration plans for the military. A portion of the expected $80-billion request will go to programs not directly related to efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. For instance, the Army is planning to fund three of its new brigades with money from the emergency fund, and Pentagon officials have said that the Army’s plan to make permanent a 30,000-soldier increase in its ranks will likely also come out of supplemental funding.

“Those probably aren’t things that ought to be paid for with the supplemental,” said Kosiak.

The administration’s plan would cut its controversial missile defense program by 22%, allocating $7.8 billion in 2006, compared with $10 billion this year. Last year’s Defense spending request represented a 13% increase for the missile program.

Among the military services, the Air Force, with its raft of costly airplane and helicopter programs, would continue to get the most funding -- $127.5 billion. But the budget would cut the service’s FA-22 fighter plane purchase from 277 planes to 180 planes, as was expected, saving $15.5 billion over six years.

The Navy and the Marine Corps, with their own aircraft and ship fleets to build and maintain, would each receive $125.6 billion.

The Army’s budget would decrease to $100 billion, though that branch of the military is bearing much of the burden in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many Army weapons programs are less costly than those of the other services, and the bulk of the supplemental money the administration plans to request to fight the wars will go to the Army.

The plan would also add 1,200 special operations troops and increase base salaries in the military by 3.1%.