The top officer in the Air Force said this week that Congress needs to pass a budget in order for the military to operate properly now and down the road.
According to The Washington Free Beacon, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein told a group at a Wednesday Heritage Foundation event the military needs more budget stability.
"The most important thing that we can get from Congress is a budget," Goldfein said. "We have got to get back in the position of allowing a service chief the ability to plan and produce for the nation the best Air Force I can produce with the resources I'm given."
In recent years, Congress has kept the government funded with continuing resolutions and sequestration. Those tactics, Goldfein said, are not helping the military's ability to keep the United States safe.
"For a service chief, the sandbox that I work in is capability, capacity, and readiness, and I've got to make strategic trades within those three bins to be able to build the best Air Force that we can build," he said. "If resources don't come until the last half of the year, which has been the case now for eight years running . . . and I've only got that money in one-year increments, you can't plan against that."
According to the U.S. Naval Institute, the chiefs of the Navy and Marine Corps voiced similar concerns last week.
A continuing resolution will keep the government funded through the end of April. Last month, the House passed a $578 billion defense spending bill that is still awaiting passage in the Senate.
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