Frederico Bartels is a policy analyst for defense budgeting at The Heritage Foundation's Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy.
View all authorsHealth CareCommentary
Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., was right last week to stop legislation that would have presumed a host of health conditions are linked to American service… Read More
SecurityCommentary
The House’s July 14 vote to approve the annual defense authorization bill represented a bipartisan repudiation of the Biden administration’s fiscal year 2023 defense budget… Read More
SecurityCommentary
Only one bill in Congress reliably makes it into law every year: the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA. The NDAA has passed for 62… Read More
PoliticsCommentary
The Senate last week passed an amended version of the Honoring Our PACT Act. The bill, likely to pass the House, represents the largest expansion… Read More
EconomyCommentary
A budget is more than just the sum of its revenues and outlays. It’s also a reflection of the values held by its drafters. Based… Read More
SecurityCommentary
The Chinese Communist Party announced this week it will increase the budget for the People’s Liberation Army by 7.1%. The announcement occurred at the opening… Read More
SecurityCommentary
With inflation surging and dim prospects for a full-year appropriations bill, 2022 is already shaping up to be a challenging year for the Pentagon. Whether… Read More
SecurityCommentary
Last week, we presented the first half of The Heritage Foundation’s defense center’s Christmas wish list, which you can read here. (The Daily Signal is… Read More
SecurityCommentary
Every year since 1961, the Department of Defense has had a National Defense Authorization Act, which sets defense policy and procurement for the coming fiscal… Read More
SecurityCommentary
The first 10 months of the Biden administration have brought us numerous indicators that national defense is not a priority for it—from a defense budget that… Read More
Health CareCommentary
Daniel Gade and Daniel Huang’s recently released book “Wounding Warriors: How Bad Policy Is Making Veterans Sicker and Poorer” can be summed in one simple… Read More
EconomyCommentary
The Senate Armed Services Committee has approved a version of the fiscal year 2022 National Defense Authorization Act that would increase the Pentagon’s budget by… Read More
SecurityCommentary
It is easy to complain, much harder to offer solutions. Congress loves to criticize the Pentagon’s wastefulness, even though lawmakers create some waste by imposing… Read More
SecurityCommentary
When the Office of Management and Budget released its 2022 budget request, President Joe Biden stated, “Where we choose to invest speaks to what we… Read More
EconomyCommentary
Even before the outbreak of COVID-19 and the spending binge that followed, the federal budget was on an unsustainable trajectory. The Republican Study Committee, the… Read More
SecurityCommentary
The Senate Committee on the Budget held a hearing on “Waste, Fraud, Cost Overruns, and Auditing at the Pentagon” on May 12. By the title… Read More
SecurityCommentary
If there is one thing that is quite clear in the early days of the Joe Biden presidency, it is the administration is more than… Read More
SecurityCommentary
Trying to preserve a veneer of democratic legitimacy, the Chinese government goes through the political theater of a meeting of its rubber-stamp Congress every March…. Read More
SecurityCommentary
The top two items on the agenda in the waning days of the 116th Congress should be to pass appropriations bills to keep the government… Read More
SecurityCommentary
“If the reason that you want a 20% cut in the defense budget is because you see the U.S. military as a fundamentally destabilizing force… Read More
SecurityCommentary
If you hired a trainer to lose 50 pounds, would you fire him after two weeks if you’d lost only 5? Now, imagine being asked… Read More
PoliticsCommentary
The House of Representatives will likely vote later this week on H.R. 7617, a 1,165-page behemoth that would spend more than $1 trillion in taxpayers’… Read More
SecurityCommentary
The House of Representatives and the Senate approved their respective versions of the National Defense Authorization Act last week. Both passed with strong bipartisan support…. Read More
SecurityCommentary
The Congressional Progressive Caucus introduced a measure in both the Senate and the House to cut the U.S. defense budget by 10%. The proposed amendment… Read More
SecurityCommentary
The House Appropriations Committee approved its fiscal year 2021 funding bill for the Department of Defense on July 14 on a straight party-line vote of… Read More
SecurityCommentary
The House Armed Services Committee last week unanimously approved its version of the National Defense Authorization Act, with all 56 members who were present voting… Read More
SecurityCommentary
The Senate Armed Services Committee last week passed its version of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2021. The bill passed by a… Read More
Health CareCommentary
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Congress has already approved more than $2.4 trillion in new deficit-increasing measures, from new spending to tax relief…. Read More
SecurityCommentary
Back on Feb. 15, when the Department of Defense released its budget request, the world and the United States looked a lot different. The NBA… Read More
SecurityAnalysis
The National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2020 is heading to President Donald Trump’s desk for signature. It represents a big step in the… Read More
