Budgeting and Acquisition Business Process Reform

Abstract

This report serves three purposes. Our first purpose is to assess the future of the Planning, Programming, Budgeting and Execution System (PPBES) and related budget reforms and to suggest that it may take more that a marginal adjustment to the current PPBES process to plan and budget most effectively for national defense and weapons acquisition. In this regard, we recommend that the DOD, and the federal government as a whole, adopt a capital budgeting process. The second purpose is to review and assess previous acquisition reforms in DOD, many of which continue into the present. The third purpose is to assess modification of the current acquisition process to improve the business processes imbedded within this system, as well as to make the overall process operate more efficiently.