Washington Report

摘要

The Defense Department's FY2010 budget request will not be submitted to Congress until April 2009 instead of early February as is customary, according to various published reports, because officials from the new Obama administration want an opportunity to review it and make minor changes before it is sent to Congress. The DOD plans to send only a summary budget outline to Congress February 2, and then it will draft the final detailed FY2010 budget request over a period of two months after receiving fiscal and policy guidance from the incoming Administration, particularly in regard to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In related news, the DOD's Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) has been advanced to February. The QDR, a congressionally mandated examination of the national defense strategy and the military services' force structure, modernization plans and infrastructure, typically takes up to 10 months to complete.