Reagan and Defense Spending...

Classified Acquisition Programs in the FY 1999 Defense Budget Request

Classified or “black” programs comprise some $14 billion or 17 percent of the administration’s fiscal year (FY) 1999 request for $84.8 billion in Department of Defense (DoD) acquisition funding. The classified amount consists of $7.1 billion in procurement and $7.1 billion in research and development (R&D) funding. During the Reagan buildup of the 1980s, DoD’s classified acquisition funding grew significantly, reaching some $21 billion in FY 1987. But compared to the FY 1999 requested level, it will have fallen nearly 50 percent in real (inflation-adjusted) terms since then, roughly paralleling the rate at which total DoD acquisition funding has decreased.

Because access to information on black programs is restricted, DoD and Congress generally provide less oversight for these programs than for unclassified ones. In the past, this reduced level of scrutiny, on top of the compartmentalization of information that normally accompanies classified programs, has contributed to performance problems and cost growth in a number of programs, leading some members of Congress and others to argue that the Pengaton’s classification policies should be reformed and funding further reduced for classified programs.1