As reported by the House Committee on Armed Services on June 7, 2013
H.R. 1960 would authorize appropriations totaling $632 billion for fiscal year 2014 for the military functions of the Department of Defense (DoD), for certain activities of the Department of Energy (DOE), and for other purposes. That total includes $86 billion for the cost of overseas contingency operations, primarily in Afghanistan. In addition, H.R. 1960 would prescribe personnel strengths for each active-duty and selected-reserve component of the U.S. armed forces. CBO estimates that appropriation of the authorized amounts would result in outlays of $618 billion over the 2014-2018 period.
The bill also contains provisions that would increase or decrease the costs of defense programs funded through discretionary appropriations in 2015 and future years. Those implicit authorizations would affect force structure, DoD compensation and benefits, DoD’s use of multiyear procurement authority, and other programs and activities. CBO has analyzed the costs of a select number of those authorizations and estimates they would, on a net basis, lower the amount of appropriations needed to implement defense programs relative to current law by about $9 billion over the 2015-2018 period. Those savings are not included in the total amounts of outlays in the previous paragraph because funding for those activities would be covered by specific authorizations in future years.
In addition, H.R. 1960 contains provisions that would affect direct spending. CBO estimates that, on net, those provisions would decrease direct spending by $18 million over the 2014-2018 period and by $2 million over the 2014-2023 period. Enacting the bill would have an insignificant effect on revenues. Because enacting the legislation would affect direct spending, pay-as-you-go procedures apply.
