Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has urged Congress to fully fund the government for fiscal year 2022 because he believes a long-term continuing resolution will have a significant impact on key programs at the Department of Defense.
Austin, a 2021 Wash100 awardee, made the statement Monday after President Biden approved stopgap measure to maintain agency spending levels through Feb. 18.
“A full-year CR would be a fiscally unsound way of funding the Department of Defense and government as a whole,” the defense secretary said.
“It would misalign billions of dollars in resources in a manner inconsistent with evolving threats and the national security landscape, which would erode the U.S. military advantage relative to China, impede our ability to innovate and modernize, degrade readiness, and hurt our people and their families.”
He also warned that extending the stopgap measure will affect the federal government’s public health, research and development and infrastructure projects that support the national security mission.
Austin called on lawmakers to hammer out an agreement that would prevent a full-year CR from happening.
