4. Department of Defense · Major · Needs Congress
Eliminate Air Force pass-through funding
Not started
Printed page 113 4. Department of Defense
“Eliminate pass-through funding, which has grown to more than $40 billion per year and has caused the Air Force to be chronically underfunded for decades.”
What has happened
- Not started
No provision of the FY2026 NDAA (P.L. 119-60), the reconciliation act (P.L. 119-21) or the FY2026 appropriations acts removes 'non-blue' pass-through accounts from the Department of the Air Force budget, and no bill in the 119th-Congress Corpus is titled for it. Off-allowlist reporting puts FY2027 pass-through at about $52 billion.
No action found yet. This entry is the starting point, not a finding.
Research log
What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence
Research notes
- Air & Space Forces Magazine (off allowlist): “Pass-Through and Classified Spending: What’s Hidden in the ‘27 Budget” (https://www.airandspaceforces.com/pass-through-non-blue-classified-2027-air-force-budget/) reports $52.3 billion of pass-through in the FY2027 request (13.4% of the Department of the Air Force total) and $48.3 billion approved for FY2026 — the funding has grown, not been eliminated. Its “Senate Proposal Would Eliminate ‘Pass-Through’ Funding” and “New Bill Aims to Highlight Pass-Through Funding’s Impact” pieces are undated in search results and were not read — leads.
- Searched: FY2026 NDAA enrolled text for “pass-through”, “pass through”, “non-blue” (0 hits); Federal Register full text “pass-through” “Air Force” since 2025-01-20 (5 unrelated hits); titles of bills in Congress for “pass-through”/“Air Force” budget (none).
- Action
- eliminate
- Object
- Air Force pass-through funding
- ID
- 206