The Department of Defense estimates that its efforts to modernize have been delayed multiple years due to Congress's frequent reliance on continuing resolutions instead of passing the president's requested budget over the past decade.

President Joe Biden signed a continuing resolution that passed both chambers of Congress late last week, which kicks the government shutdown matter to January, though Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin pointed out in a statement, "Operating under short-term continuing resolutions hamstrings the Department's people and programs and undermines both our national security and competitiveness."

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Continuing resolutions usually keep the funding the same as the previous year's appropriations, which would amount to a $35 billion cut if DOD is forced to operate under the fiscal 2023 budget instead of the requested 2024 budget, Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks said on Tuesday at a Defense Writers Group event.

"We estimate we've lost probably a total of about four years' worth of progress on our modernization efforts in the decade, nearly 11 years, that we've been dealing with [continuing resolutions]. That has a cost. You can't buy back the time, you just can't," she said. "We do think it will impact ... the substantial efforts we have underway to pace to China."

While the CR the president signed will keep the government open and ensure service members get paid through the holiday season, it does not include any of the more than $100 billion that Biden requested in a supplemental funding request for urgent needs such as continuing to aid Israel and Ukraine in their wars against Hamas and Russia respectively.

"This short-term CR will ensure that our troops and civilian workforce will be paid through the holidays," deputy Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said last week. "As we have long made clear, operating under a short-term continuing resolution hamstrings the department's people and our programs and undermines both our national security and competitiveness."

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Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Bill LaPlante told the Politico Defense Summit last week that CRs can have a "devastating effect" on the military and defense industrial base due to the delays in contracting that ensue.

There were more than 45 continuing resolutions passed by Congress between fiscal 2010 and fiscal 2022, the government accountability office said in a blog post last November.