November 9, 2021

The Honorable Lloyd J. Austin III

Secretary of Defense
1000 Defense Pentagon
Washington DC 20301

SUBJECT: Update on United States Air Force Pass-Through Budget

Dear Secretary Austin

We write to respectfully request an update on the Department of Defense’s plans to address or

offset the U.S. Air Force’s pass-through budget. In a hearing before the House Armed
Services Committee on June 23, 2021 regarding the Fiscal Year (FY) 2022 National Defense
Authorization Budget request, when asked about this topic you stated, “[...] while we can’t be
fully transparent on these issues, we need to make sure that the Air Force budget is
represented in the appropriate way.” Our interest in receiving this update is to ensure that the
Air Force has a level playing field to advocate for the resources it needs to modernize its
equipment and capabilities in future years.

In the FY 2022 President’s Budget, the Department of Defense budget request included:
● Army: $172.734 billion
● Navy: $211.721 billion
● Air Force: $212.764 billion
● Defense-wide: $117.780 billion

While the Air Force’s budget request appears commensurate with the other service branches’
budget requests, $39 billion of the $212.8 billion budget “passes through” the Department of
the Air Force to fund other government agencies. The Air Force’s “pass through” budget
represents over 18 percent of the Air Force’s total spending proposal -- a disproportionately
higher percentage than what other services allocate for pass-through funding. From FY 1990
through FY 2020, this has totaled an amount of nearly $900 billion dollars in the Air Force
budget of which none of those dollars went to the Air Force.

In the interest of transparency and honest representation of the respective Armed Services
budget allocations, we request that all future budget reports, representations, and citations
made by the Department of Defense to the Department of the Air Force budget only include
those monies for which the Department of the Air Force has direct budget authority.
Additionally, for every year since 1994—27 years—the Department of the Air Force has
received less funding than either the Army or the Navy. Since 9/11/2001, the Army alone has
been given over one trillion dollars more than the Air Force, or an average of over $53 billion
dollars a year more than the Air Force. As a result of this chronic and serious underfunding,
the Air Force is currently the oldest and smallest than it has ever been in its history.

Decades of underfunding the Air Force has led to the deterioration of its competitive
advantage in key missions like air superiority, long range strike, and next generation
unmanned aerial vehicles suitable for peer conflict. This reality is illustrated by the fact that
the Air Force’s fourth generation fighter aircraft average age is over 34 years, over half its
bomber inventory pre-dates the Cuban Missile Crisis, and its next generation unmanned aerial
vehicle plans keep getting scrapped for lack of funding. We cannot afford to delay investments
in next generation combat capabilities if we want to continue to maintain technological
superiority.

We believe that there is an urgent need to equitably fund the Air Force and equip this service
branch with the resources it needs to counter ongoing aggression by the Chinese Communist
Party and the Russian government. Should a conflict arise in the Indo-Pacific, European
theater, or anywhere else in the world, the Air Force would be the first to arrive at the fight by
traveling vast distances within hours or days. Also, joint force operations cannot be
accomplished without some element of the Department of the Air Force being involved.

The Air Force’s robust topline number misleads the public into believing that the Air Force is
well-funded and well-equipped. That is simply not the case. As Congress works to authorize
and appropriate funding for the Department and consider potential tradeoffs between
personnel, readiness and modernization, it is important for policymakers to understand and be
able to accurately represent the totality of the budget recommendations between the military
services.

As you prepare the Fiscal Year 2023 President’s Budget request, we urge you to expeditiously
review this proposal to reverse decades of Air Force modernization neglect and realign the Air
Force’s pass-through budget to the DoD defense-wide budget account. We believe that the
Department of Defense must allocate more resources towards procuring new aircraft and other
next-generation weapon systems needed for future combat environments.

We appreciate your timely consideration of this matter. If you have any questions, please
contact Serena Li (serena.li1@mail.house.gov) on Congressman Kahele’s staff.
 Sincerely

Kaialiʻi Kahele Don Bacon

Member of Congress Member of Congress

Trent Kelly James R. Baird

Member of Congress Member of Congress

August Pfluger Scott DesJarlais

Member of Congress Member of Congress

Blake Moore Pat Fallon

Member of Congress Member of Congress

Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen Don Young

Member of Congress Member of Congress

Steven Horsford Van Taylor

Member of Congress Member of Congress