The Pentagon’s fiscal year 2027 budget request is coming “relatively soon,” a senior official said last week, saying it will outline a “generational investment in the joint force.”
After last year’s delayed budget rollout that irked Congress, Jay Hurst III, the department’s acting comptroller, said the forthcoming request will offer a greater level of initial detail although he did not commit to the inclusion of a five-year spending projection plan.
“There’s money for the things that your companies are working on, the defense industry’s working on. And it’s there. It’s going to be an incredible budget. But that’s all I can say for right now,” Hurst said during a panel at the Reagan Institute’s National Security Innovation Base Summit.
President Donald Trump has said he wants a $1.5 trillion defense topline for fiscal 2027, while the path to reach that spending increase is uncertain after he cast doubt on the prospects of pushing for a second reconciliation bill. Hurst declined to confirm the Pentagon’s planned topline request for fiscal 2027 or how it plans to construct the request between base budget and potential funding from a second reconciliation bill, while pointing to Trump’s social media post when asked about the level of funding the department will seek.
Congress last year lamented the Trump administration’s delayed budget request rollout which extended into the summer. Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), the top Democrat on the defense appropriations panel, at the time called it “the latest budget in history” and said staggered submission of documents from the Pentagon affected appropriators’ crafting of defense spending legislation.
Hurst said the pending budget request submission will be “earlier than last year, for sure,” while adding “we’ll see” when asked if the Pentagon will include a five-year Future Years Defense Program spending outline, which was not publicly released as part of last year’s rollout.
Exchange Monitor affiliate Defense Daily first published a version of this story.