Each year, Americans are passengers on the same political train wreck. Instead of Congress doing its main job of passing annual budgets, we get incremental, temporary extensions of what we are already doing. Called continuing resolutions, these funding stopgaps put us on autopilot, wasting an average of four months and 8% of our buying power every year.

The focus then inevitably shifts to who gets blamed for that failure. The spotlight should be on who gets hurt by it.

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For defense, the continuing resolution autopilot stalls progress on buying better weapons, weakens America’s military, hurts industry and the economy, and wastes money since it costs more to buy things bit by bit. The cumulative damages of insufficient, uncertain, and late funding are certain, visible, well documented, and affect every domain of warfighting.

In the maritime arena, Senate appropriators recently concluded that “the Navy and America’s shipyards have continued to struggle with production timelines, workforce issues, and supply chain challenges.”

The Government Accountability Office was more blunt: “The shipbuilding industrial base has not met the Navy’s goals in recent history.” The Navy fleet is the smallest on record and will never catch up — at least not if we don’t provide stable funding while aggressively diversifying into a hybrid mix of traditional and unmanned ships that will be survivable and competitive in the environment we face.

In the air, America remains impressive, as we saw recently with Operation Midnight Hammer, but here, too, the service is the smallest in history. It is also old, with dismal readiness rates backed by inadequate munitions stocks.

In 2024, the nation’s land force had the most Class A flight mishaps since 2014 and the worst rate per 100,000 flying hours since 2007. These accidents are characterized as severe with significant consequences, including loss of life, and have been caused in part by human and maintenance errors. Lack of predictable, on-time funding contributes to both of these problems.

Dangerous readiness levels are not unique to the Army. All the military branches fall victim. The Navy has historically assigned fewer crew members to ships than are required to operate them safely. Such crewing shortfalls contributed to fatal Navy surface ship collisions in 2017.

America is significantly behind on drone production and the integration of artificial intelligence advancements. The story is only marginally better in cyber and space-dependent capabilities, with all efforts lagging behind where they should and could be if they had predictable, sufficient, and on-time funding.  

The problem and resulting damage are clear. So is the solution.

Last year’s version of the budget dysfunction holds some of the keys to the three moves we need: anticipatory two-year budget agreements, modernized budget structures and mandatory spending for the Defense Department, and a new model for oversight that includes well-placed incentives for completion of annual appropriations on time.

First, debates about federal budget spending caps must be separated from the annual appropriations cycle. Such decisions should be the start-game, not the end-game. This means the first order of business for each new Congress should be to set spending levels for at least two years in advance of federal agencies even building their budgets.

Second, this year’s budget reconciliation provided money in a new way, geared toward outcomes, and opened the door to broader mandatory accounts for defense. All the military’s operational and personnel costs, which make up about 60% of the budget, should be moved to mandatory spending. This would focus the annual debate on discretionary defense spending, procurement and modernization, that is actually subject to yearly decisions. This money should be appropriated into accounts focused on capabilities so the Pentagon can move faster and be a smarter customer, resulting in more bang for our taxpayer buck.

Third, Congress should build on these first two by pursuing a new approach to giving policy and oversight direction. Advances in the Pentagon’s data and financial systems management make it possible to provide real-time updates on how money is being spent, rather than the current labor-, time-, and paper-intensive process that satisfies no one.

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Congress should also embrace its control over the annual federal budget and make failure to act toxic enough that it stops happening. Congressional pay and term limits should be linked to completing appropriations on time, as should the legislative calendar. After the new fiscal year starts on Oct. 1, if annual appropriations are not done, then all other congressional priorities should halt until they are.

Our elected leaders should work together to take these three steps now and end the annual wasteful, disruptive, and destructive federal budget debacle that is putting our security at risk.

Elaine McCusker is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a former acting comptroller of the Department of Defense.