Rep. Mac Thornberrry, R-Texas, warned Monday that substantive programs could still be cut under the recent budget deal.
Despite the fact that the Defense Department would receive $5 billion less than the president’s request for fiscal 2016, observers said the Pentagon did well in the deal because funding levels would be set well above sequestration caps. But Thornberry tamped down that enthusiasm.
“There will be real programs that are cut, that’s what we’re kind of finalizing today with the Senate,” Thornberry told reporters following his remarks at the Defense One Summit. “We’re definitely looking at them all and trying to do the least damage, but nobody should be under the illusions that you can do this [without pain.]”
Lawmakers are now back to the drawing board on the annual defense authorization bill after the president vetoed it last month over using overseas contingency operations funding to pay for base-budget priorities. Lawmakers recently struck a budget deal that will lift the sequestration caps that required the budget workaround, but the deal still provides $5 billion less than the top line requested by both the president and the budget passed by Republicans in Congress.
Thornberry, who is chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, declined to say where cuts might come from, only noting that the department will feel their impact.
“There’s not a bunch of fat here where you can just take an inch off the top and avoid getting into the meat,” Thornberry said.
Thornberry said negotiators are still talking about the best steps forward, but that he expected action this week on Capitol Hill to get the annual defense bill signed into law.
