Jules Hurst, acting comptroller of the Pentagon, left, and Pete Hegseth, US secretary of defense, during a House Armed Services Committee hearing in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, April 29, 2026. The hearing is set to examine the Department of Defense 2027 budget request. Photographer: Daniel Heuer/Bloomberg via Getty Images
WASHINGTON — If Congress does not pass the full $350 billion reconciliation funding requested by the Pentagon, the department is prepared to work with lawmakers to figure out how to shuffle key priorities into the base budget, the department’s comptroller Jules Hurst told Breaking Defense today.
That plan, though, means the department would need to work with appropriators to cut investment in other places or defer them until 2028.
“If we really want to fund those things, then we have an opportunity to go back to the appropriators before they finalize the bill, at least I think we will…. it’s a conversation, obviously,” Hurst said on the sidelines of the NDIA Emerging Technologies Conference.
But at this point, Hurst said it is “too premature” to know exactly what those decisions will be and what the trade-offs will require.“The question would be, what’s more important to have money for in FY27 [or] can it wait for FY28,” he added. “And, a lot of these technological areas [are] evolving so fast. Some things we need the money right now to invest in change. … Other things we need to do a little more research and development.”
