How Inflation Makes Military Poorer

Right now, it’s hard to find any good, commodity or service that is getting cheaper. Those same inflationary trends hold true for the Department of Defense’s finances. Congress keeping the military on a spending freeze for nearly half a year is only exacerbating budget challenges.
The result is an agency surging troops forward as Russia builds up forces near Ukraine that is losing buying power near equivalent to sequestration levels of 2013. Absent a fast fix, the military will continue to financially triage as planned costs for everything from fuel to timber to rental assistance far outpace actual bills.
The Pentagon is losing between $4 and 6 billion a month when accounting for the loss of spending increase Congress provided this year in the absence of appropriations and inflation running from three to 7% or more depending on account. Roughly $3 billion is simply lost due to the lack of money, or purchasing power, from Congress. While the Hill voted to authorize a 5% topline increase of $36 billion, appropriators have yet to “cut the check” for these finances. The federal government is stuck at Trump-era levels of spending—to say nothing of hundreds of misaligned accounts and pri …

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