House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, said President Trump should look to the $18 billion in expenditures the House approved but were dropped in conference from last year’s National Defense Authorization Act as a starting point for the supplemental spending request Trump said he would send to Capitol Hill during his first 100 days in office.
That money was intended to pay for more troops, training, maintenance, facilities and new equipment, for example, he said.
Thornberry said the committee has “been in touch” with the Trump administration about the supplemental, which Trump said would be for “national security,” and may include border security measures.
“The administration has been very clear and consistent that they will send up a supplemental request for [20]17 in the coming days,” Thornberry told reporters Monday. “The sooner the better.”
The Pentagon has been operating with stopgap funds since October, which is unacceptable, Thornberry said. He urged Congress to pass the full defense fiscal 2017 appropriation immediately.
Thornberry said his committee is already working on the 2018 budget, which must be presented as soon as possible. “There’s no reason to wait until April,” he said.
Thornberry is proposing $640 billion for 2018 to rebuild the military.
Thornberry also called for an end to sequestration as it pertains to the Pentagon.
“You do not balance the budget by cutting defense,” Thornberry said. “What you do is create a more dangerous world and increase the risk to the men and women who serve our nation.”
Thornberry said that since sequestration went into effect in 2013, a false argument has emerged that Congress cannot circumvent the caps for defense spending unless domestic spending is raised equally.
Holding the defense budget “hostage” to such logic is “absolutely wrong morally and every other sort of way,” he said.
Thornberry said Congress must tackle the federal deficit but that the military needs more money now.
“We cannot wait to fix our airplanes until we get all of our budget problems solved,” he said.
