Testimony before the House Armed Services Committee revealed that the Clinton Administration neglected the modernization needs of our military services and that future Administrations will need to provide significant resources to modernize our military forces.

    In 2000, the bipartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), reported that DoD would need to spend about $90 billion a year to maintain a steady rate of procurement funding for today's force structure.  Former Defense Secretary, Dr. James Schlesinger, supported CBO's assessment, but placed the number that defense was underfunded by as much as $100 billion per year.

    Clinton's former Secretary of Defense, Bill Perry admitted that the FY01 procurement budget of $60 billion was inadequate.  Instead he stated, "My own judgement is it probably needs to be perhaps $70 to $80 billion" to modernize our defense systems.

     An upcoming 2002 report from CBO will conclude that modernization needs will require in excess of $90 billion.
 

    The FY02 defense budget did not appreciably increase procurement spending to the levels necessary to modernize our military.  Procurement spending should be increased by at least $30 billion in FY03 to approximately $90 billion.