No wonder the Biden administration chose to release their 2022 budget just before a long holiday weekend. It’s a common Washington practice for releasing news that officials hope will go unnoticed.
Biden’s defense budget offers little to improve any of the uniformed services, but it would absolutely devastate the readiness of the U.S. Army.
The Army’s 2022 budget needed to be $180 billion just to keep pace with inflation. The Biden budget offers only $173 billion, a loss of $7 billion in purchasing power.
It’s a budget calculated to take the Army back to the final years of the Obama administration, when readiness was miserable. After years of overuse and inadequate defense funding, Vice Chief Gen. Dan Allyn informed Congress in February 2016 that only three of the Army’s 58 brigade combat teams were fit to go to war.
Biden’s budget would cut crucial combat training, curtail needed end-strength growth and slash equipment programs. If all of this were to go through, it would reduce soldiers and units to the poor readiness levels of 2016, if not worse.
No element of the Army escapes unscathed.
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