CRS INSIGHT
FY2020 Defense Budget Request: An Overview
Updated March 26, 2019 (IN11083)
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Brendan W. McGarry
Christopher T. Mann
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Brendan W. McGarry, Analyst in US Defense Budget (bmcgarry@crs.loc.gov, 7-2023)
Christopher T. Mann, Analyst in Defense Policy and Trade (cmann@crs.loc.gov, 7-0451)
The President's FY2020 budget request includes $761.8 billion in budget authority for national defense, a major
function of the federal budget that includes funding primarily for Department of Defense (DOD) programs but also for
defense-related activities administered by other federal agencies, including the Department of Energy.
National defense is one of 20 major functions used by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to organize budget
data―and the largest in terms of discretionary spending. The national defense budget function (identified by the
numerical notation 050) comprises three subfunctions: DOD–Military (051); atomic energy defense activities primarily
of the Department of Energy (053); and other defense-related activities (054), such as FBI counterintelligence activities.
National Defense Budget
The $761.8 billion national defense budget request includes $750 billion in discretionary budget authority and $11.8
billion in mandatory budget authority (see Figure 1
), according to OMB.
The national defense budget request represents an increase of $35.6 billion (4.9%) in nominal dollars from the FY2019
amount of $726.2 billion, according to OMB. Adjusting for inflation, the overall request amounts to $746.6 billion in
constant FY2019 dollars, representing a real increase of $20.4 billion (2.8%) from the FY2019 amount, according to a
CRS analysis of OMB data.
The $750 billion requested for national defense discretionary spending breaks down as follows:
$718.3 billion for DOD (95.8% of the total);
$23.2 billion for atomic energy activities (3.1%); and
$8.4 billion for other defense-related activities (1.1%).
Figure 1. FY2020 National Defense Budget Request
(in billions of dollars of budget authority)
