Recently, Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan told the press that the Defense Department is preparing a $700B budget proposal in addition to a $733B draft that has already been prepared, in line with President Trump’s earlier call for spending cuts, the Washington Examiner reported Thursday.
In October, President Trump instructed his cabinet secretaries to reduce their upcoming budget proposals by 5 percent, indicating that “[we] know what the new budget is for the Defense Department; it will probably be $700 billion.â€
Shanahan explained, however, that a “smaller†defense budget is already being prepared.
The DoD official said he wanted to ensure that the president is well-informed of the trade-offs that would have to be made should a $700B defense budget be enacted.
President Trump needs to have “an awareness of what that number really translates to in terms of performance here for the department,†Shanahan stated.