Have you heard of OCO funding? "How Pentagon war fund became a budget buster Washington can't resist"

2015-07-31T11:40:20-04:00

If you ever worked with military budgets, or obligated and committed federal funds, you likely have heard of OCO funding (formerly GWOT funding...). This is a pot of money we have - apparently endless - to fund anything we need or want... to support OCO... GWOT. As the Article says... this can be a very gray area... I would agree, based on my experiences.

- For 2016 it appears it will be: Obama proposed $51 billion in OCO spending for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, along with a regular $534 billion defense budget. It was has high (OCO) as 187 billion in 2008.

- The United States spent $1.6 trillion on the Iraq and Afghan wars and related operations between fiscal years 2001 and 2014, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service (CRS) said in December.

- But $81 billion of that was spent on "non-war" costs, CRS found. The true figure is likely much higher: OCO money isn't audited to ensure it was used for war operations.

"The difficulty was putting the genie back in the bottle," said a former White House official, particularly after the budget caps were imposed in 2011.

http://news.yahoo.com/pentagon-war-fund-became-budget-buster-washington-cant-131221455--business.html

How Pentagon war fund became a budget buster Washington can't resist

By Warren Strobel WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of U.S. troops deployed in battle zones is at its lowest level since before the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The contradiction is the legacy of an emergency war fund, started in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, that has become a favorite Washington way to sidestep the impact of fiscal constraints on military spending. The Overseas Contingency Operations account, or OCO, has been tapped...

Response by TSgt Private RallyPoint Member made Jul 31 at 2015 9:37 PM

2015-07-31T21:37:12-04:00

It's always good for us to have a fund to draw from during emergencies, but looking at how the fund is used, maybe it should be better defined and have some sort of authorization for us.

While we are making cut backs on troops and it's hurting us, we still are maintaining to the best of our ability, but cut backs in other areas could also be made, or more defined in order to save the Government a larger amount of money.

On one side, an endless pot of money to draw from (well nearly endless) is extremely useful if we go to war with a technological equivalent country. However, on the other side, it's our nature as human beings that if we see money, and we have even the tiniest control of it, we're going to use the heck out of it.

Thanks for the info Colonel!