Despite recommending an end to the F-22 program, Gates announced plans to increase purchases of F-35 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft from 14 in this year’s budget to 30 in fiscal 2010.

Despite cuts to other areas of missile defense, Gates’ proposal calls for nearly $1 billion more than previously planned for systems to intercept missiles with less-than-intercontinental range.

In addition, the he announced plans to contract out fewer Pentagon posts and hire 30,000 more Defense employees to replace contractors over the next five years.

Congressional Reaction

Murtha, chairman of the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, praised Gates for reviewing Defense programs but called the proposals a mere “first step” in the process. Murtha promised a careful examination of the budget plan.

Skelton, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, called Gates’s proposals a “good faith effort.”

“Secretary Gates has set out major changes to the defense budget based on changed assumptions about the wars our military must be prepared to fight,” Skelton said. “However, the buck stops with Congress, which has the critical constitutional responsibility to decide whether to support these proposals.”

McCain, the ranking Republican on the Armed Services Committee, was more effusive in his praise of Gates’s initiative.

“It has long been necessary to shift spending away from weapon systems plagued by scheduling and cost overruns to ones that strike the correct balance between the needs of our deployed forces and the requirements for meeting the emerging threats of tomorrow,” McCain said. “Today’s announcement is a major step in the right direction.”

A bipartisan group of senators urged President Barack Obama in a letter Monday not to cut anti-missile spending.

“We write to urge you not to allow deep cuts in U.S. missile defense programs that are critically important to protecting our homeland and our allies against the growing threat of ballistic missiles,” said the letter, which was signed by Joseph I. Lieberman , I-Conn., who caucuses with Democrats, as well as Democrat Mark Begich of Alaska and Republicans Jon Kyl of Arizona, James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Jeff Sessions of Alabama,

The ranking Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, John M. McHugh of New York, also criticized the proposed reductions in missile-defense spending. While Republicans favor reforming the Pentagon’s acquisition system, such efforts must not become a “mechanism to cut defense spending,” he said.

Lawmakers whose districts are adversely affected, or who believe the blueprint cuts too deeply into important capabilities, will make their views known in the days ahead.

Stakeholder Views

Douglas A. Birkey, director of Government Relations for the Air Force Association, which supports Air Force programs, called the proposals “incredibly troubling because they follow the classic paradigm of using tomorrow’s dollars to solve today’s problems.”

“Not every future war will look like Iraq and Afghanistan and if there is anything that these conflicts have taught us, it is to expect the unexpected and to build a balanced force,” Birkey said. “These draconian cuts don’t just involve programmatic nuances, they cut to the Air Force’s roles and missions of deterring potential aggressors, waging sustained air campaigns and even rescuing airmen downed behind enemy lines.”

Some analysts predicted the backlash from Congress could worsen.

“The Obama administration’s actions are meant to bring strategy and spending into better alignment, increase military personnel benefits, and save money,” said Travis Sharp, a defense analyst at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. “But members of Congress do not always share these broad national objectives. Particularly in this economy, Congress is motivated by jobs and home state pork, not national defense. There is a reason President Eisenhower originally wanted to call it the ‘military-industrial-congressional’ complex.”

Gates’s recommendations form the highlights of the Pentagon’s fiscal 2010 budget request. In February, Obama announced the total amount of money he would like to spend for the Defense Department — $533.7 billion in discretionary funds, or 4 percent more than fiscal 2009, plus $130 billion in new war funding. In May, the budget’s remaining details will be sent to Capitol Hill.

As soon as this week, the president is expected to send to Congress a request for a second installment of fiscal 2009 war funding, which will include $75.5 billion for the Defense Department and about $7.1 billion for the State Department and foreign operations.

Matthew Johnson contributed to this story.