Congressional Budget Office

  1. $83 billion in projected war costs for 2013

    Published: January 17th, 2012

    Mary Kaszynski
    Afghanistan Study Group

    The president’s budget request for fiscal year 2013, starting October 1 of this year, will be released next week. Bloomberg reports the request is expected to include $83 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    The final number for Defense Department war costs in fiscal year 2012 is projected to be $115 billion, so $83 billion doesn’t look too bad by comparison – that’s a decrease of $32 billion, or 28%. $83 billion is still a lot of money, however, especially when money is tight. So it’s worth taking a closer look.

    What’s immediately clear that there’s something funny with this number. In its most recent scenario for the drawdown timeline, the Congressional Budget Office estimated $83 billion for fiscal year 2013, the same as the expected request. CBO’s estimate, however, was based on an assumed troop level of 100,000 in 2013. The president’s plan is to bring back the rest of the 30,000 “surge” troops in 2012, leaving about 68,000 at the beginning of 2013. (The timeline for 2013 and beyond is still unclear, though 2014 is still the official deadline for the transition to local security forces).

    So, to recap: CBO says 100,000 troops in 2013. The administration says 68,000 at the beginning of 2013, and something lower than that by the end. Both say this will cost $83 billion.

    What explains the discrepancy? The Congressional Research Service’s latest report Amy Belasco offers a couple of explanations.

    First, the way CBO makes these estimates cannot take into account policy decisions, like the decision about how much to contribute to the Afghan National Security forces. (This particular example doesn’t explain why the administration estimate is higher, since the US is planning to cut back on aid to the Afghan security forces).

    A second explanation is in the different ways in which CBO and DOD develop these estimates. CBO bases its estimate on previous cost trends. DOD, on the other hand, uses “a model to estimate the costs of deploying specific types of units in each service.” CRS notes that “It does not appear that DOD uses per previous annual per troop costs as a general check of the validity of its model.” The end result is that CBO’s estimates are usually much lower than the request for the same number of troops.
    Finally, the CRS report concludes with a fascinating line: “There is some evidence in recently reported obligations that DOD’s war requests may be overstated.” CRS has documented and discussed at length the differences between DOD requests and CBO estimates (see, for example, pages 20-24 of this report). But the bottom line is this: DOD consistently requests more for war costs than CBO estimates, and there is no entirely satisfactory reason.

    The 2013 request is unlikely to be an exception to this trend. $83 billion may not seem like a lot compared to last year, but it is still too much. The war is supposed to be wrapping up and the troops coming home. The Defense Department is making some tough choices about where to cut back.  Why aren’t they cutting back war costs?


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