Congress Passes Appropriation Bills

Congress signed budget appropriations for the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security into law last month, with $448 billion allocated to the DoD and $34.8 billion to the DHS for 2007.

While DoD appropriations reflect a continued need for funds to finance the Iraq war, increased expectations for detailed IT spending plans and budget cuts for IT programs could lead to a slowdown in new IT initiatives in fiscal year 2008, according to Reston, Va.-based research firm Input.

Continuing the transformation of the DoD infrastructure will be emphasized. Agencies will seek out-of-the-box solutions that can cut costs.

Congress emphasizes critical needs such as border and immigration security; nuclear detection; cargo and container security and natural-disaster preparedness for the DHS.