Rebranding the Department of Defense to the Department of War, as per President Donald Trump’s September executive order, could cost up to $125 million, the Congressional Budget Office mentioned in an estimate printed Wednesday.
Depending on how the division chooses to implement the change, prices could vary from $10 million to $125 million, the CBO mentioned in a letter to two Democratic senators. If Congress joins the Pentagon in statutorily altering the division’s title, it could cost “hundreds of millions of dollars.”
The CBO, which aims to provide objective, nonpartisan information to Congress, added that its “estimate is uncertain” as a result of the Department of Defense decline to present the small print of its plans. NCS has reached out to the Pentagon for extra data on the way it plans to implement the title change.
The effort to rename the Department of Defense is an element of the Secretary Pete Hegseth’s bigger rebranding of the company, which has included emphasis on the fitness and appearance of service members, public messaging on troops’ lethality and energy and the rolling again of range, fairness and inclusion (DEI) measures.
According to the CBO, prices would largely go towards updating signage, letterheads and the DOD web site — which has already been modified. The rebranding could get dearer relying on how briskly the division implements the adjustments, like if it instantly replaces gadgets that say Department of Defense as opposed to ready till these shares deplete.
“The faster the changes were implemented, the more parts of DoD that the changes applied to, and the more complete the renaming, the costlier it would be,” the CBO wrote.
The CBO mentioned that in accordance to a spending report it obtained from the Pentagon, 5 organizations throughout the Office of the Secretary of Defense spent $1.9 million over the span of 30 days on revised “flags, plaques, identification badges, and updated training materials.”
Trump’s govt order approved the Secretary of Defense, the Department of Defense and subordinate officers to use secondary titles like “Secretary of War,” “Department of War,” and “Deputy Secretary of War” in official correspondence, public communications, ceremonial contexts, and non-statutory paperwork throughout the govt department, in accordance to a truth sheet obtained by NCS final September.
The truth sheet appeared to acknowledge Trump would wish Congress’s assist to make the change everlasting, however Trump on the time mentioned he was unsure of that.
“I don’t know, but we’re going to find out, but I’m not sure they have to,” he mentioned.
When President George Washington based the nation’s Army, he named it Department of War. But the title was later modified in 1949 as half of a broader reorganization of the army underneath President Harry Truman.