Myth vs. Fact: The Pentagon Slush Fund

By Lindsay Koshgarian
Posted: May 21, 2015 | Military & Security

Last week, the House of Representatives passed the National Defense Authorization Act, suggesting spending levels for the Pentagon for the coming fiscal year. The NDAA authorized $499 billion in regular spending for the Pentagon. On top of that, the bill authorized $90 billion for the Pentagon slush fund known as Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO).

The OCO slush fund was originally designed to fund our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but it is now being used to help the Pentagon break existing spending caps. Nearly $40 billion of the proposed $90 billion in OCO funding for fiscal year 2016 has nothing to do with any current conflict. Here are some of the common misconceptions about the Pentagon’s slush fund:

Myth: We need this spending to stay safe
.
With lawmakers attempting to ramp OCO funding back up to $90 billion in fiscal year 2016 from $64 billion fiscal year 2015, Americans might assume that the increase is needed to address relatively new threats, such as that from the Islamic State (or ISIS). But only about $5 billion of that total would be spent on the fight against ISIS.

Myth: More money is good for the Pentagon however it comes about.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter has bemoaned the fact that the year-to-year nature of the slush fund poses a threat to long term strategy and planning, and has called the slush fund a “road to nowhere.”

Full article:
https://www.nationalpriorities.org/blog/2015/05/21/myth-vs-fact-pentagon-slush-fund/