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Wright-Patterson relatively unscathed in Obama defense budget

File photo Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.

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Updated 4:55 PM Monday, February 13, 2012

By John Nolan

Staff Writer

Jessica Wehrman

Washington Bureau

President Obama’s 2013 defense budget, released on Monday, appears to leave Wright-Patterson Air Force Base relatively unscathed as the administration gets started on $487 billion in defense spending cuts over the next 10 years.

But the spending plan, which Congress may substantially overhaul, reflects the impact of tough choices, including a more than $1 billion proposed reduction in the Air Force’s total outlay for research, development, test and evaluation. It would drop from $26.7 billion in the current budget to $25.5 billion for the federal fiscal year that begins on Oct. 1.

The Air Force Materiel Command, which oversees nine bases including Wright-Patterson where the command has its headquarters, manages the Air Force’s procurement, research and development, testing and evaluation programs. That includes Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., the service’s flight test center.

Obama’s 2013 budget maintains most, though not all, of the key spending accounts used by the Air Force Research Laboratory, headquartered at Wright-Patterson. The applied research account funding would drop to $1.1 billion, down from $1.2 billion in the current fiscal year, and advanced technology and development funding would fall to $596,737 from the current $685,702.

“From what we’ve seen of the budget documents released so far, Wright-Patterson seems to be facing level funding in the next fiscal year, under the president’s budget,” said Michael Gessel, a Washington-based vice president of the Dayton Development Coalition. “Of course, Congress can and does change some of these numbers.”

Obama proposed a military pay increase of 1.7 percent, saying that is in line with what the private sector is doing.

Republicans have said they think Obama’s defense spending reductions will undermine the military and its current capability to fight more than one war at once. Obama has said his goal is to build a smaller, more agile and technologically capable military ready for future warfare.

Still, Congress required the $487 billion in defense spending cuts over a decade, as part of the Budget Control Act enacted in 2011.

Obama’s budget does not account for an additional $500 billion in cuts over the next decade that could start in 2013 because Congress’ bipartisan deficit reduction committee failed last year to identify areas in which to cut spending. Pentagon officials and aerospace industry leaders have said those additional cuts could be devastating for defense capabilities.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-West Chester, said Monday that the overall budget — not just the defense portion — reflects Obama’s “failed policies.”

“Our nation needs Washington to demonstrate some courage with a budget that honestly addresses the near- and long-term challenges we face,” Boehner said. “Instead, the president offered a collection of rehashes, gimmicks and tax increases that will make our economy worse.”

Obama’s 2013 defense budget of $613.9 billion includes a basic budget of $525.4 billion and $88.5 billion for overseas contingency operations, primarily in Afghanistan. That is down from a $531 billion basic budget and a $115.1 billion overseas budget in the current fiscal year, the Defense Department said.

Obama also will ask Congress to authorize two rounds of base realignment and closure (BRAC) reviews in 2013 and again in 2015, to consider closing some bases and relocating programs to bases that will stay open. The nation’s 2005 BRAC round brought Wright-Patterson a net gain of 1,200 jobs, including the relocated Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine and additional sensors research programs.

The president proposed $140.3 billion for the Department of Veterans Affairs, up from $126.9 billion this year, which anticipates increased health care needs for veterans. The budget projects that about 610,000 veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars will receive health care through the VA’s hospitals and clinics this fiscal year.

The VA budget also proposes a 33 percent increase in spending to reduce homelessness among veterans.

As part of the administration’s effort to reduce defense spending and overall government budget deficits, Obama proposes to cancel the Global Hawk’s Block 30, the most common version of the unmanned surveillance plane. The Air Force would replace it by continuing to fly the U-2, a spy plane that dates to the 1950s but has been upgraded.

The Global Hawk is among many aircraft and weapons programs managed by the Aeronautical Systems Center at Wright-Patterson. Personnel assigned to that program could be transferred to other program management teams, base officials have said.

The administration also proposed to cancel the C-27J, a twin-engine turboprop cargo plane that the Defense Department had said in 2007 would provide a needed airlifter for both the Air Force and the Army. Because the Ohio Air National Guard’s Mansfield base is home to C-27Js, Ohio politicians are concerned about the future of that base.

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