Another press briefing with top Pentagon officials, another round of foreboding budget predictions: If Congress fails to pass a budget and instead opts for another continuing resolution, it could be dire for the Army.
“I have a binder yea-thick of impacts,” Heidi Shyu, Army assistant secretary for acquisition, logistics and technology, said in an Oct. 13 press briefing at the Associated of the U.S. Army annual meeting in Washington. She held her fingers several inches apart and warned that “over 400 programs are impacted if we have a year-long CR [continuing resolution],” totaling $6.1 billion worth of capabilities.
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That would include sizable impact on big-ticket Army programs like the AH-64 Apache and CH-47 Chinook helicopters, of which the Army would only be able to buy half of what was planned. But it also means no new starts – including for 75 science and technology programs the Army intended to kick off, Shyu said.
Another CR also would pose serious threats to Army readiness, now and in the future, said GEN Dennis Via, commander of Army Materiel Command.
“Readiness takes time to build. It’s not an on and off switch,” Via said. “When you look cumulative effects of sequestration over the years, continuing resolutions over a period of time, unpredictable funding – that impacts not only just the Army of today, that’s going to impact the Army of 2030. What I worry about most is the cumulative effect over years that we won’t know we’ve reached the cliff until we get there…the price will always be the lives of our soldiers.”
