Follow us on social

Senators want to infect other agencies with 'unfunded' wish lists

Senators want to infect other agencies with 'unfunded' wish lists

Expanding a controversial budgeting practice that is already being abused to hike military spending is folly


Analysis | Washington Politics

Last week, Senators Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Todd Young (R-Ind.) introduced legislation, along with an identical amendment to the Pentagon policy bill, to require the Department of State and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to submit so-called “unfunded priority lists” (UPLs) to Congress.

In a press release announcing the effort, they argue the requirement “recognizes the State Department and USAID’s roles as key national security agencies,” and would provide “a clearer picture to Congress of where we need to allocate resources to ensure we can effectively respond to emerging threats and global challenges.”

While diplomacy and foreign aid are absolutely essential to national security, and are arguably undervalued as such in the budget, expanding a practice that fuels the very overemphasis on military spending these lawmakers aim to address is the wrong approach.

Unfunded priorities are just that — unfunded, meaning lower priority than everything that was funded in the president’s budget request. And while it is the prerogative and responsibility of Congress to assess, adjust, and approve the nation’s budget, unfunded priorities undercut the holistic approach to budgeting enshrined in the normal budget process.

Congress started requiring the military and several other national security agencies to submit unfunded priority lists to Congress in 2017, a response to former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’s efforts to rein in the practice.

In the years that followed, lawmakers have used these unfunded priority lists to argue that the Pentagon is woefully underfunded. That argument is at odds with the reality that military spending has grown nearly 50 percent adjusted for inflation since the turn of the century.

It’s also at odds with military service leaders, who often preface these lists with assurances that the president’s budget is sufficient. As Army Chief of Staff General Randy George put it in his FY2025 UPL, “the Army’s FY25 budget request maintains our alignment with the National Defense Strategy and our ability to conduct our warfighting mission.”

Nonetheless, the growth of the unfunded priority lists this year was a central argument in Sen. Roger Wicker’s (R-Miss.) case for adding $55 billion to the Pentagon budget. And Senate appropriators just answered this call to arms with a $21 billion hike to the Pentagon budget, an open rebellion against budget caps agreed to just last year.

Lawmakers also occasionally fund UPLs by cutting items that were included in the base budget — against the express wishes of the military service leaders who submit these lists. Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Lisa Franchetti for example emphasized in the Navy’s UPL that “these unfunded items do not take priority over the FY 2025 President’s Budget and I urge Congress not to reduce the FY 2025 budget submission to support these unfunded items.”

Congress routinely ignores these requests, and this year is no different.

The Pentagon’s civilian leadership has also taken issue with UPLs. Last year, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin expressed his support for repealing the requirement for these lists. Explaining the Pentagon’s opposition, Pentagon Comptroller Mike McCord argued that “The current statutory practice of having multiple individual senior leaders submit priorities for additional funding absent the benefit of weighing costs and benefits across the department is not an effective way to illuminate our top joint priorities.” The same logic would hold true for State and USAID.

Lawmakers, particularly those on the foreign relations committees like Kaine and Young, have plenty of opportunities to hear from State and USAID officials as they weigh the president’s budget request and look for opportunities to boost our national investments in these critical agencies. So do lawmakers on the armed services and appropriations committees with respect to the Pentagon budget.

Rather than expanding the practice of budgeting for national security by cherry-picking unfunded projects at the expense of real priorities, Congress should repeal these requirements and adopt a more measured, holistic approach to meeting our national security needs.

Thankfully Senator Warren (D-Mass.) is working to do just that with her own bipartisan amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which was co-sponsored by Senators Mike Lee (R-Utah), Mike Braun (R-Ind.), and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). When Congress gets around to finalizing the NDAA, it should support this straightforward amendment to repeal the UPL requirements and reject efforts, however well intentioned, that would expand the malign impacts of unfunded priority lists.


Wonder AI

Analysis | Washington Politics
Kim Jong Un
Top photo credit: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visits the construction site of the Ragwon County Offshore Farm, North Korea July 13, 2025. KCNA via REUTERS

Kim Jong Un is nuking up and playing hard to get

Asia-Pacific

President Donald Trump’s second term has so far been a series of “shock and awe” campaigns both at home and abroad. But so far has left North Korea untouched even as it arms for the future.

The president dramatically broke with precedent during his first term, holding two summits as well as a brief meeting at the Demilitarized Zone with the North’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un. Unfortunately, engagement crashed and burned in Hanoi. The DPRK then pulled back, essentially severing contact with both the U.S. and South Korea.

keep readingShow less
Why new CENTCOM chief Brad Cooper is as wrong as the old one
Top photo credit: U.S. Navy Vice Admiral Brad Cooper speaks to guests at the IISS Manama Dialogue in Manama, Bahrain, November 17, 2023. REUTERS/Hamad I Mohammed

Why new CENTCOM chief Brad Cooper is as wrong as the old one

Middle East

If accounts of President Donald Trump’s decision to strike Iranian nuclear facilities this past month are to be believed, the president’s initial impulse to stay out of the Israel-Iran conflict failed to survive the prodding of hawkish advisers, chiefly U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) chief Michael Kurilla.

With Kurilla, an Iran hawk and staunch ally of both the Israeli government and erstwhile national security adviser Mike Waltz, set to leave office this summer, advocates of a more restrained foreign policy may understandably feel like they are out of the woods.

keep readingShow less
Putin Trump
Top photo credit: Vladimir Putin (Office of the President of the Russian Federation) and Donald Trump (US Southern Command photo)

How Trump's 50-day deadline threat against Putin will backfire

Europe

In the first six months of his second term, President Donald Trump has demonstrated his love for three things: deals, tariffs, and ultimatums.

He got to combine these passions during his Oval Office meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on Monday. Only moments after the two leaders announced a new plan to get military aid to Ukraine, Trump issued an ominous 50-day deadline for Russian President Vladimir Putin to agree to a ceasefire. “We're going to be doing secondary tariffs if we don't have a deal within 50 days,” Trump told the assembled reporters.

keep readingShow less

LATEST

QIOSK

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.