Lockheed Martin is very pleased with the new defense budget that was recently passed by the U.S. Congress. The company and its programs stand to benefit enormously from the increased U.S. defense outlays.

“We were very pleased to see Congress enact the Consolidated Appropriation Act of 2018 providing much needed funding for our nation's military and national security,” Lockheed Martin president and chief executive officer Marillyn Hewson told investors on April 24. “Notably the 2018 Appropriations Act raised DOD [Department of Defense] base budget funding to $600 billion over 14% above 2017 level representing the largest year-to-year increase in base budget funding for the Department of Defense in 15 years.”

Hewson noted that the new defense budget provides for a massive 20 percent gain in appropriations funding—which is especially beneficial for large defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin. “When coupled with the overseas contingency operations funding the total amount appropriated for defense activities rose to $665 billion, included in this increase was a recognition of the need to significantly recapitalize our nation's forces with the investment accounts appropriated at levels over 20% greater than the previous fiscal year,” Hewson said.

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Indeed, Lockheed Martin is a key beneficiary of the new defense budget. “Lockheed Martin programs were especially well supported in the budget markup, with the legislation including increased funding for 20 additional F-35 fighter jets, 17 additional C-130J transport aircraft, 16 additional Blackhawk and Seahawk helicopters, two CH-53K helicopters and increases in multiple missile production programs as well as our Orion contract,” Hewson said. “All told key Lockheed Martin programs representing all four of our business areas received over $7 billion of appropriations above the fiscal year 2018 budget request, a clear sign of the strong support our broad portfolio has garnered from the customer community.”

While this year’s defense budget was been generous to Lockheed Martin, the company expects the trend to continue into 2019. “I'll close my budget discussion with a look ahead to fiscal year 2019. In February Congress passed the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 and raised the defense budget caps in both 2018 and 2019. We were very pleased to see appropriations enacted to support the 2018 increase in base budget funding,” Hewson said. “We are encouraged by these legislative actions that provide our military with the resources needed to enable them to fulfill their crucial mission and we are hopeful that the fiscal year 2019 funding process will follow the same positive path in the coming months.”

However, while budgets are on a positive trajectory, the threat of automatic sequestration budget cuts has not gone away. “We still have limiting out there this whole issue of sequestration, which everybody would like to see go away,” Hewson said. “So I won't ignore the fact that that's sitting out there, but what I would say is that the dialogue I have is about the very difficult situation in global security around the world it's just unpredictable, there is a need to move with speed and agility to address the threats that are there, and so is it enough, I mean you know, we don't talk specific numbers and it is not that I haven’t heard anybody say it's enough.”

Dave Majumdar is the defense editor for The National Interest. You can follow him on Twitter: @davemajumdar.