President Biden’s Budget Request

President Joe Biden’s Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 budget request calls for $886 billion in defense spending, in what Secretary Austin calls “the most strategy-driven request we’ve ever produced” to focus on confronting the pacing challenge from the People’s Republic of China. Meanwhile, U.S. Central Command’s importance appears to be decreasing. CENTCOM Commander Gen. Erik Kurilla testified earlier this month “our forces decreased 15% over the course of 2022 alone” and that his command has seen “a reduction of 85% from its 2008 peak.”

Although the Biden administration touts its defense budget request as the largest ever, given inflation, it actually represents a decrease in real spending on defense and concomitant loss of purchasing power—at the same time that U.S. adversaries like China and Russia are significantly increasing their own defense spending in real dollars.

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