Funding two military services — with the resources for one — risks both

The U.S. Defense Department’s budget is confusing — and misleading. On the surface, it appears that the departments of the Air Force, Army and Navy receive comparable shares of the budget. That’s false. There is a little understood provision referred to as the "pass-through” that quietly transfers more than 20 percent of the Department of the Air Force’s budget to programs outside its control.

The Department of the Air Force, with its two military services — the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Space Force — has been significantly underfunded for decades, resulting in significant shortfalls in readiness and modernization for both air and space forces. The pass-through funds that seemed to go to the Air Force for space were inaccessible for Air Force space investment.