The Pentagon's program over the next 18 years will require hundreds of billions of dollars more than planned to man, train, and equip the force, according to the Congressional Budget Office. CBO projects that if greater funds are not appropriated in the future, the military would have to shrink, both in personnel and equipment. In an update of a 2003 report, the CBO said that the Pentagon's future years defense program (FYDP) calls for a rise in annual spending from $402 billion in 2005 to $455 billion in 2009 but that the actual cost of programs in that year would probably be about $498 billion. That would leave a cumulative, five-year deficit of more than $220 billion. (All figures were expressed in Fiscal 2005 dollars.) In "The Long-Term Implications of Current Defense Plans: Summary Update for Fiscal Year 2005," CBO forecast that the annual defense bill will continue to grow during the decade that follows the FYDP. If the Pentagon manages everything brilliantly and costs don't sharply rise, it will cost an average of $485 billion a year for the US military in the decade from 2010 to 2022. Historical trends and a profusion of programs whose costs aren't yet nailed down, however, suggest the real figure could go as high as $553 billion a year between 2010 and 2022-without adding any more new programs.
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