Air Force may ask Congress for permission to grow in 2017

In an era of military downsizing, the Air Force is one of the few parts of DoD that’s already received funding to grow over the next year. Yet officials say they’re still struggling to achieve the end strength they need and may have to ask Congress for additional money to add more uniformed airmen.

Deborah Lee James, the Air Force secretary, told the Senate Appropriations Committee on Feb. 10 that her service might need a budget reprogramming to grow its active duty officer and enlisted force beyond the 317,000 airmen lawmakers approved for 2016.

Congress OK’d that growth from the previous year’s 311,000 after James successfully argued that the Air Force’s previous manpower cuts — 30 percent over the last 25 years — made it too small to keep up with its national security commitments.

“Given our current operations tempo we certainly can’t sink below that number, and I believe the demands will indicate we’ll need even more growth in FY17,” James said Wednesday. “In order to meet these demands, I plan to take a judicious approach to incrementally increasing our total force beyond the current level, provided of course that we can attract the right talent. So we would be grateful for this committee’s assistance should a reprogramming action be required.”

More