Ryan McCarthy, secretary of the U.S. Army and a 2020 Wash100 Award recipient, has said the service branch is working to realign its budget priorities to relieve debt related to COVID-19 response.
McCarthy told attendees at a Hudson Institute event that the Army intends to make internal funding cuts after accumulating debt from COVID-related efforts such as the Operation Warp Speed vaccine production program, National Defense Magazine reported Wednesday.
He said that future budget requests will cover reappropriated funds for the Army’s modernization programs including long-range precision fires, next-generation combat vehicles, air-and-missile defense and future vertical lift.
“It’s [a] tremendous amount of debt that we’ve incurred to deal with COVID and it was necessary, but how do we deal with this going forward?” noted McCarthy. “We’re looking very hard at that and we’re talking to economists,” he added.
