Despite deal, more budget battles loom.

• Author: Harper, Jon
• Position: Budget Matters

Democrats and Republicans recently reached a bipartisan budget agreement that lifts sequestration caps on defense expenditures and avoids a government shutdown. But more fiscal fights lie ahead.

The deal raises base defense spending to $548 billion in fiscal year 2016 and $551 billion in fiscal year 2017. It includes an additional $59 billion for overseas contingency operations (OCO) in each of those years.

Although the budget toplines have been agreed upon, congressional appropriators must still come to an agreement about line item funding for specific programs, analysts noted.

"Most of the issues are settled for [fiscal year] '16 at this point," said Todd Harrison, a defense budget analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Stuthes. But decisions about program funding for fiscal year 2017 won't be tackled until next year after the Defense Department releases its budget request.

In the coming years, Congress and Pentagon officials will have to figure out how to pay for expensive modernization programs, including the F-35 joint strike fighter, KC-46 tanker, long-range strike bomber and the Ohio replacement submarine, experts said.

"I think lawmakers will wresde with...how to overcome the modernization bow wave facing DoD," said Jacob Cohn, a defense analyst at the Atlantic Council. "I would not be surprised if the buys are truncated."

Members of Congress will also be confronted with "contentious" cost-saving proposals such as changes to military pay and benefits and another round of base realignment and closure, he said in an email.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said lawmakers will need to consider ways to rein in personnel costs.

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