The administration’s budget request is expected on Capitol Hill next week. Here are some more details on the request and the appropriations process that will follow:

• “I heard … there’s going to be money in [the 2020 Pentagon budget] for the wall, which is a nonstarter, which is just going to further complicate any kind of [defense appropriations] bill to get done this year,” SAIC Vice President of Government Affairs Bruce Hock – a former Senate Armed Forces Committee staffer – said, according to National Defense. The budget could include up to $12 billion for border wall funding, AEI’s Mackenzie Eaglen said, according to the article.
• The Air Force will ask for 78 F-35s, a cut from the expected request of 84, Bloomberg The move may be to make room for more advanced F-15s.
• Contractors should not be concerned that the Army is moving up to $30 billion from other programs to its modernization efforts, service leaders said this week. “There are billions of dollars of opportunities across all of these portfolios,” Undersecretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy said, according to National Defense. “It’s not like we’re reducing topline [funding numbers] or walking away.”
• The Army is the weakest service in pushing for money from Congress, according to new RAND analysis of how each service approaches funding requests.

 
U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class James Kennedy