There won’t be a test

There won’t be a test

The military budget process I knew in my time inside the DC Beltway was:

1)      Compete for funding within the Marine Corps.

2)      Compete for funding within the Department of the Navy.

a.      There are two naval services which are: The Navy and The Marines. That often confuses and complicates things, too.

b.      Naval aviation includes the Navy and the Marines. The ratio is around 2 to 1, that is for every two Navy planes there is one Marine plane. The building, care and maintenance of all this aviation stuff costs money, too.

c.       At the college level, one may see Naval ROTC on a building, vice Navy ROTC on the same building. I suspect many called it the Navy ROTC, but that is not how it really works.

d.      Sometimes the Navy and the Marines come to “loggerheads”, so to assume the Navy gets “two votes” is not an accurate statement. Both services will often abuse that when required.

3)      Compete for funding within the Department of Defense. Said another way, compete for funds with the other military services, like the Army and the Air Force.

4)      Compete for funding within the Congress, which in the end authorizes and appropriates funding.

Now one could try do end runs, and I was also not above that. But so can anybody else, too.

And at any point in the process, the idea and funding I was promoting might get beat out in the end. It is probably fair to say most American military people have good objectives, in the end.

And then there is the American media, which can influence the action, too. And they often do, too, or at least try to. If that sounds like propaganda, it is kind of like that, but still different, too.

And last, there is competition within companies who often receive the funds to do their bit. Never discount that, either.

And I never discounted the influence of our House and Senate staffers, either. They most decidedly are part of the process, too.