Classified "Black" Spending Reaches $28 Billion, 19% of Defense Spending

[PDF]Classified or “black” programs appear to account for about $28.0 billion, or 19
percent, of the acquisition funding included in the fiscal year (FY) 2006
Department of Defense (DoD) budget request (see Table). This total includes
$14.2 billion in procurement funding and $13.7 billion in research and
development (R&D) funding. These figures represent 18 percent and 20
percent, respectively, of the total funding requested for procurement and R&D.
Among other things, this analysis finds that:
- In real (inflation-adjusted) terms the $28.0 billion FY 2006 request
includes more classified acquisition funding than any other defense
budget since FY 1988, near the end of the Cold War, when DoD received
$19.7 billion ($29.4 billion in FY 2006 dollars) for these programs.
- Classified acquisition funding has nearly doubled in real terms since FY
1995, when funding for these programs reached its post-Cold War low.
- Since FY 1995, funding for classified acquisition programs has increased
at a substantially faster rate than has funding for acquisition programs
overall, which has grown by about 60 percent in real terms.