An Interesting Trend So Far
Tuesday, March 6, 2012 at 3:26PM | BFAD 
Last November we told you about the increase in National Intelligence Program (NIP) budgets from FY07– FY11. Since then, the FY12 and FY13 requested budgets have been released, and it looks like FY11 was the peak. The FY12 request fell 0.93% below FY11 after adjusting for inflation, and the FY13 request is down another 6.05%. The national defense budget, of which NIP is a part, peaked a year before the NIP although it had a comparable cut in (6.3%) FY13. The defense figures include war spending, and although the intel budget does not detail whether funding is war-related or not, decreased war costs might account for some of the change. In this era of greater intelligence transparency, it’ll be interesting to see if NIP funding just follows the broader defense path, or moves on its own.