In addition to the DOD’s regular, basic budget, the Defence Department’s financial management community achieved an unprecedented feat last year by generating four supplemental budgets with amazing quickness.
“The National Defence Strategy outlines our security priorities, defending the homeland, paced to the… growing threat posed by the People’s Republic of China across many domains—from cyber to nuclear weapons,” McCord added.
According to McCord, the NDS also portrays Russia as a serious danger and instructs the department to prevent strategic strikes against the United States, its allies, and partners as well as to be ready to win wars, particularly in the Indo-Pacific theatre. All of it, he claimed, necessitates an extraordinary degree of agility from departments inside the organisation, particularly those in the field of financial management.
We had four supplementals in one calendar year last year, as an illustration of that flexibility and reactivity, McCord added. “Four in a year? I’ve never seen that before. They were all completed promptly and with the support of most members of Congress. It demonstrates the wide-ranging support for what we’re doing. Additionally, it demonstrates our community’s [financial management] need for and capacity for agility.
According to McCord, there will probably be more chances in the future for the financial management community to meet unforeseen demands, like with Ukraine. The financial management community would have more chances to show off its flexibility, he predicted.
“Ukraine is not going to be the last case of emerging national commitment demanding our assistance,” he declared. We are actually encountering them everywhere, therefore we must always be prepared to act immediately. Humanitarian crises, conflicts, and wars continue to be widespread worldwide. We must maintain our support for freedom and human rights alongside allies around the world.
While the president and Congress have increased DOD funding by $100 billion over the last two years, according to McCord, the timing of the delivery of each budget continues to be a concern.
McCord praised the support for the top line. “The timing and promptness of that help matter equally. This pattern of recurrent, protracted, persistent, continuing resolutions is one thing that is not so fantastic. These have an adverse effect on our mission.
It’s more challenging to compete, he continued, particularly with China, which frequently moves and delivers goods more quickly than we anticipate.
Increasing contact with Congress and improving listening skills are two aspects of a remedy to this issue, according to McCord.
It’s also our responsibility to keep reminding people about the damage that this dynamic does for us, he added, as well as to support our service chiefs and secretaries in doing so. Speaking of communicating, if we don’t talk to Congress about our priorities and listen to their worries rather than just deliver information, we won’t succeed. We must pay attention.
McCord claimed to have spent several years working on Capitol Hill and to be knowledgeable about the procedures and significance of committee work.
“I have firsthand appreciation for what goes into their work and how seriously our oversight committees take their work,” the man added. The administration and the Hill must maintain open lines of communication for our process to function.