4. Department of Defense · Notable · Needs Congress
Increase the Air Force budget by 5 percent annually above inflation
Printed page 114 4. Department of Defense
“Increase the Air Force budget by 5 percent annually (after adjusting for inflation) to reverse the decline in size, age, and readiness and facilitate the transition to a more modern, lethal, and survivable force.”
What has happened
- Partially done
The Department's own topline says something different from the annual appropriation, and the difference is what it counts. The FY 2027 Budget Request Overview Book gives Department of the Air Force budget authority as **FY2025 actuals $260.6B → FY2026 Enacted $292.8B → FY2027 request $391.1B**, +12.4 percent nominal FY25→FY26, and describes the FY2027 blue budget as "a deliberate and necessary 38 percent ($92.5 billion) increase". On its face that is well above 5 percent real. Two footnotes in the table itself are why it does not settle the ask: FY2025 actuals "include supplemental funding from P.L. 118-158 and mandatory funding from P.L. 119-21 Spend Plan" and FY2026 Enacted "includes mandatory funding from P.L. 119-21 Spend Plan", so both columns carry the one-off reconciliation money already recorded above rather than recurring budget growth; and the Department of the Air Force topline includes the Space Force, which the recurring-appropriation comparison below deliberately excludes. The Quote asks for 5 percent annual real growth in the Air Force budget. One year of enacted growth that is mostly one-off and partly Space Force is a piece, not the compounding increase: `partial` stands, now with the Department's own arithmetic on the record alongside the appropriation's.
- Partially done
The annual appropriation went the other way in real terms. Division A of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026 (P.L. 119-75) gives the seven Air Force accounts $208.23B (Military Personnel $38.768B, O&M $61.543B, Aircraft Procurement $19.965B, Missile Procurement $3.964B, Ammunition $0.773B, Other Procurement $32.605B, RDT&E $50.615B). The same accounts in the last enacted pre-window defense bill, P.L. 118-47 (FY2024, the baseline because FY2025 ran on a full-year continuing resolution), total $202.45B - 2.85 percent nominal growth over two years, below inflation and far below the compounding 5 percent above inflation the Quote asks for. Aircraft Procurement and Missile Procurement both fell in nominal dollars.
- Partially done
The reconciliation act (P.L. 119-21) put a large one-off, multi-year plus-up into Air Force programs outside the annual appropriation: $3.15B to increase F-15EX production, $4.5B for B-21 production capacity, $2.5B for Sentinel risk reduction, $2.118B for spares to keep Air Force aircraft mission capable, $2.5B for Air Force facilities sustainment, $440M for C-130J, $474M for EA-37B, $400M for F-47 and $678M for Collaborative Combat Aircraft, all available until 2029. This is an increase in Air Force resources, but not the recurring 5-percent-real growth in the Air Force budget the Quote asks for.
Research log
What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence
Research notes
Arithmetic done by reading the account paragraphs of both enacted bills on govinfo.gov (P.L. 119-75 and P.L. 118-47), the same method used for #189-#191. FY2024 figures: Military Personnel $36,204,130,000; O&M $61,471,101,000; Aircraft Procurement $20,828,306,000; Missile Procurement $4,693,647,000; Ammunition $589,943,000; Other Procurement $31,327,131,000; RDT&E $47,340,416,000.
- Reserve and Air National Guard accounts are excluded from both sides of the comparison, as is the Space Force, which now has its own accounts and did not in FY2024.
- The partial reading is a judgment call: a reader looking only at the annual appropriation would call this not started, because the recurring Air Force budget shrank in real terms. It is recorded as partial because Congress did enact a large increase in Air Force resources inside the window - just not as recurring budget growth.
- Two toplines, one item (2026-09-03). The Department’s FY 2027 Overview Book — downloaded from comptroller.war.gov — reports +12.4 percent FY25→FY26 for the Department of the Air Force, while the account-by-account reading above reports +2.85 percent nominal over two years for the seven recurring Air Force appropriation accounts. Neither number is wrong. The Department’s counts the Space Force and the one-off P.L. 119-21 and P.L. 118-158 money, both by its table’s own footnotes; the account reading counts neither, because the Quote asks about recurring Air Force budget growth. The item is leveled on the second and cites both. The finding that surfaced the Overview Book proposed moving the item up on the Department’s figure alone; that would have read the reconciliation plus-up twice, once here and once in the 2025-07-04 event.
- Action
- expand
- Object
- U.S. Air Force budget
- ID
- 207