Trump Budget Cuts Defense S&T by 5.8% While Funding Third Offset Priorities

["Dave Farber" <dave () farber net>]

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From: FYI <fyi () aip-info org>
Date: Thu, Jun 1, 2017 at 5:41 PM
Subject: Trump Budget Cuts Defense S&T by 5.8% While Funding Third Offset
Priorities
To: <farber () central cis upenn edu>



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*Number 71: June 1, 2017*

Trump Budget Cuts Defense S&T by 5.8% While Funding Third Offset Priorities

President Trump’s fiscal year 2018 budget requests a 5.8 cut to Department
of Defense S&T accounts below currently enacted levels, but still above the
fiscal year 2016 baseline. Funding for late-stage development, prototyping,
and demonstration receives a substantial increase in line with DOD’s
priorities under its Third Offset Strategy.

While President Trump’s fiscal year 2018 budget request increases defense
spending by $54 billion, its funding proposal for the Defense Department’s
S&T accounts is 5.8 percent below currently enacted levels. However, the
budget request was formulated prior to a 7.8 percent increase in S&T
funding enacted <http://aip-info.org/1ZJN-4Z19T-E29DH7-2NGQKU-1/c.aspx> in
fiscal year 2017 appropriations on May 5. The budget’s S&T proposal is 1.6
percent above the fiscal year 2016 level.



DOD S&T comprises three of the seven defense Research, Development, Test,
and Evaluation (RDT&E) accounts: basic research, applied research, and
advanced technology development. Under the Trump budget, spending on RDT&E
as a whole would increase by about 14 percent, dominated by
multi-billion-dollar boosts to late-stage development, prototyping, and
demonstration activities. That increase would return those activities
closer to the funding levels that prevailed between 2005 and 2010. This
emphasis on late-stage work is consistent with DOD’s Third Offset Strategy
<http://aip-info.org/1ZJN-4Z19T-E29DH7-2NGQKV-1/c.aspx>, which stresses the
need for near-term technological agility to maintain superiority in combat
over increasingly sophisticated adversaries.

Funding for RDT&E activities, 2000–2015, from a Sept. 2016 presentation
<http://aip-info.org/1ZJN-4Z19T-E29DH7-2NGQKW-1/c.aspx> by then-Assistant
Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Stephen Welby. BA 1=Basic
Research, BA 2=Applied Research, BA 3=Advanced Technology Development, BA
4=Advanced Component Development & Prototypes, BA 5=System Development &
Demonstration, BA 7=Operational System Development. (Image credit –
courtesy of DOD)




The chart below summarizes the changes the Trump administration is
proposing for DOD’s S&T accounts. More details are available in FYI’s *Federal
Science Budget Tracker*
<http://aip-info.org/1ZJN-4Z19T-E29DH7-2NGQKX-1/c.aspx>. DOD’s official
budget documents can be accessed here
<http://aip-info.org/1ZJN-4Z19T-E29DH7-2NGQKY-1/c.aspx>.
Proposed S&T funding by military service

The Trump administration’s proposed funding adjustments for DOD S&T are
unevenly distributed among programs administered by the Army, Navy, and Air
Force, and Defense-wide agencies such as the Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency, as illustrated in the following chart:

In recent years, Army S&T has been subject to a tug-of-war between the
White House and Congress, with congressional appropriators driving spending
upward against the administration’s more modest ambitions. Following suit,
the Trump request maintains funding levels that are relatively close to
those last requested by the Obama administration but are over 20 percent
below those enacted in fiscal year 2017 appropriations.


Similarly, the Trump request would provide funding for Navy S&T programs
that is close to the Obama administration’s most recent request but 8.4
percent below the currently enacted level. However, the budget would
restore about one third of the 16 percent cut that Congress agreed to
impose on basic research spending for fiscal year 2017.



The Air Force S&T budget would be cut back by a comparatively small 3.6
percent versus currently enacted levels. Basic research would receive a
disproportionate 7.3 percent decrease to a level slightly above the Obama
administration’s most recent request.



Under the Trump request, DOD-wide S&T programs would continue a recent
growth trend, with a spending increase of 3.1 percent. The largest
percentage increase, 8 percent, would be directed toward applied research.
Spending on the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which draws from
all three S&T accounts, would increase to $3.17 billion from the $2.87
billion fiscal year 2016 level, the most recent period for which figures
are publicly available.
Third Offset initiatives continue to find support

The Trump request’s support for DOD’s Third Offset Strategy is reflected
not only in proposed spending increases for late-stage RDT&E activities,
but also in its continued support for initiatives that DOD has promoted as
elemental to the strategy.


*Strategic Capabilities Office (SCO)*


The SCO’s budget would increase from about $900 million to over $1.2
billion. DOD regards the office, which develops new tactical uses for
existing military technologies, as elemental to its ability to remain
technologically nimble. The office is directed by William Roper, a
physicist and one of DOD’s standard bearers for the Third Offset Strategy.


*Defense Innovation Unit Experimental (DIUx)*


The Trump budget requests $29.6 million for DIUx through the DOD-wide
advanced technology development account. In fiscal year 2017
appropriations, Congress provided only $10 million, or one-third of the
Obama administration’s request, reflecting some skepticism
<http://aip-info.org/1ZJN-4Z19T-E29DH7-2NGQKZ-1/c.aspx> of DOD’s vision for
the unit. DIUx’s objective is to set up contracts with universities and
fast-moving, innovation-focused companies that do not traditionally engage
with DOD. Although small, DOD has continually promoted the unit as part of
its Third Offset efforts. (In addition to its RDT&E funding, DIUx also
currently receives about $15 million per year through DOD’s operations and
maintenance budget.)


*Rapid Prototyping Program*


The fiscal year 2017 appropriations law created a special $100 million
account for rapid prototyping activities. The Trump budget requests the
same level for fiscal year 2018.
Note on federal R&D funding measures

Following tradition, the Trump budget request includes an “Analytical
Perspectives” <http://aip-info.org/1ZJN-4Z19T-E29DH7-2NGQL0-1/c.aspx>
document, which offers quantitative insights into the budget’s design,
including government-wide figures for federal R&D funding. According to one
measure, the document suggests that federal expenditure on R&D has
decreased by 21 percent, and, according to a second, it has increased by 2
percent. Both figures are potentially misleading for reasons that the
document explains.


The 21 percent decrease is an artifact of a recategorization beginning in
fiscal year 2018 of certain activities previously classified as technology
development, but that are now not classified as R&D at all. This change was
implemented to bring the White House’s figures into closer alignment with
those used in the National Science Foundation’s Science and Engineering
Indicators. According to the new definition, DOD operational system
development, which the Trump administration proposes to fund at almost $32
billion, no longer counts as R&D so its contribution simply disappears from
the record.


Employing the old definition of R&D, the increase in federal R&D spending
in the Trump budget is accounted for by the increase in DOD’s operational
system development spending alone. However, excluding this account from
currently enacted levels and the Trump budget request, the deep cuts the
budget request makes to other federal R&D spending significantly outweigh
the spending increases proposed for other late-stage defense programs and
for R&D in the National Nuclear Security Administration.

*Contact the Author*


*William Thomas*

American Institute of Physics

<mambrose () aip org>wthomas () aip org

(301) 209-3097

More From FYI

*NIST Science Down 13% in Trump Budget
<http://aip-info.org/1ZJN-4Z19T-E29DH7-2NGQL1-1/c.aspx>*


President Trump’s fiscal year 2018 budget requests a 23 percent cut for the
National Institute of Standards and Technology. The proposed cuts fall
hardest on NIST’s manufacturing programs, while its primary research
account would see a 13 percent decrease.

*Read More > <http://aip-info.org/1ZJN-4Z19T-E29DH7-2NGQL1-1/c.aspx>*

*Trump Budget Cuts NASA Earth Science, Boosts Planetary Science
<http://aip-info.org/1ZJN-4Z19T-E29DH7-2NGQL2-1/c.aspx>*


The Trump administration’s fiscal year 2018 budget proposes to decrease
funding for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate by about 1 percent relative
to enacted fiscal year 2017 appropriations. Earth Science would see a 9
percent decrease and the cancellation of some missions, while Planetary
Science would return almost to the record funding levels it enjoyed in the
early 2000s.

*Read More > <http://aip-info.org/1ZJN-4Z19T-E29DH7-2NGQL2-1/c.aspx>*

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