The U.S. Congress

The U.S. Congress, comprised of the U.S. Senate (2 Senators from each state) and the U.S. House of Representatives (a number of Representatives for each state based on population) control the monies spent by the government for military uses and ensures compliance with U.S. Policy for use of military force. For instance, the War Powers Act of 1973 prohibits the President from waging war beyond a certain period without Congressional approval. All such controls are placed upon the Executive Branch of the government by the Congress through enactment of law, as well as various oversight and planning committees:

House Appropriatiions Committee: Acts upon budget requests from the White House or from the U.S. Senate.

Senate Appropriations Committee: Acts upon Presidential budget requests as well as their own proposals and amendments as directed by the President. The Senate does not control what expenditures are made, rather provide a set of expenditures to be approved by the House of Representatives.

House Armed Services Committee and the Senate Armed Services Committee: Propose and approve expenditures and direction for the U.S. Armed Forces. This includes oversight and budget input on Pentagon spending for weapons systems, maintenance, and payroll for the U.S. Armed Services. A Joint Committee for Defense Appropriations is typically responsible for reviewing the U.S. Military Budget and expenditures. This process begins with the Penatagon submittal of its proposed spending, and is presented by the Secretary of Defense to each of the Houses of Congress.

The Senate Appropriations Committee will recommend changes to the House Appropriations Committee, who in turn may add or delete items. Once this part of the process has taken place, the Joint Committee may add or delete after consultation with the White House and/or the Pentagon. Finally the Defense Budget is placed before the full House with the recommendations from the Senate and House Armed Services committees. The final vote firmly sets the appropriations for Defense as a percentage of the budget and as certain milestone are met throughout the year, these funds are awarded to contractors (or in the case of payroll added to the serviceman's paycheck).

House Select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence: Certain Representatives and Senators are selected for participation on the Intelligence committees to provide the oversight on expenditures, direction and policy for the U.S. Intelligence Community. The Chairman and Co-Chairman of the two houses of Congress are part of the modern management of Intelligence affairs on a day-to-day basis. For more information on the legal aspects of U.S. Intelligence, see Legal History of Intelligence.

For instance, in compliance with the Hughes-Ryan Act of 1974 and the Intelligence Authorization Act of 1981, the U.S. President, when authorizing covert activities, must notify the senior members of Congress (President of the Senate, President Pro-tem of the Senate, the Speaker of the House, the Majority Leader and the Minority Whip and the Chairman and Vice chairman of the House and Senate Select Intelligence Committees) within a reasonable time after that operation begins. Similiarly, this same group of leaders must be notified of pending use of military force in a covert or open manner before that action is to take place. These two committees provide input to the budget process for items including Intelligence activities such as technological as well as human tools and needs. Congress sometimes has elected to act outside of the bounds of the committee in the oversight functin. For example the Boland Amendment was passed by Congress to limit the President's power to authorize use of intelligence funds to support the Sandinistas in their attempt to overthrow the communist government in Nicaragua.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee: Provides guidance to the President and his Secretary of State, and consults on the setting of U.S. Foreign Policy and foreign aid. This committee aids the President in the appropriate levels of appropriation for foreign aid, to be included in the annual national budget.

Typically, the U.S. Congress and the Pentagon clash annually as their sometimes divergent views on the needs of the military create dissention and at times very vocal recriminations. But each year the debate is settled by the adoption of the U.S. budget, and in the last few years, has been demonstrated to be a last ditch affair caused by partisian bickering between the two houses as well as within the parties themselves.

Defense Appropriations Committee: This is a special committe formed during the hearings on the Defense Budget, and is responsible for this portion of the budget. It makes recommendations to the full House based upon its research and analysis.

There are also various acts as passed by Congress which set the statutes governing the practices of Department of Defense contact management and the outlay of funds to Defense Contractors. In the last few years, charges of corruption and cheating on the DoD contracts have spawned new and more restricing legislation. As the legislation restricts the activities of the Department of Defense in its role as the contractor, the Defense Industry finds itself spending more to comply, and thus the cost of procurement of weapons and weapons systems increases dramaticaly.

In 1990, Congress adopted a set of new laws which on one hand reduce the amount of effort in justifying Defense Contractor Research and Development reimbursements (Tri-Service Negoations Statutes) and at the same time added more bureaucracy to the DoD procurement management structure. Whether these actions will wind up costing the taxmaker more or less will be seen in less than five years.

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