President Trump’s newly unveiled budget plans ignore the core problem of the country’s overstretched Army — it has too few soldiers, Sen. John McCain said.
The president’s budget request calls for no increase in the size of the Army in 2018. McCain, speaking as chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said the service will never improve its readiness to fight wars unless it grows.
McCain and his committee heard testimony from Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, who discussed the budget plans released by the Pentagon and White House on Tuesday. The Army and other services have said Trump’s first defense budget is focused on patching up military readiness and that dramatic increases in the number of soldiers, Navy ships and Air Force aircraft promised by Trump will likely begin next year.
“The buildup, the administration says, will have to wait a couple of years,” McCain said. “That ignores what Army leaders have testified to this committee, which is that inadequate end-strength is forcing the Army to consume readiness as fast as it produces it.”
The Army’s $166 billion budget proposes maintaining the 476,000 active-duty Army force authorized by Congress last year.
The service is recruiting 16,000 active-duty soldiers, 8,000 National Guardsmen and 4,000 reservists to meet last year’s goals, and it could complete that effort by October, according to Milley.
Milley said the service is making slow progress in rebuilding its readiness after years of relentless operations and training schedules and he urged the Senate to approve the proposed budget.
“We need this and we need it now before it’s too late,” he said.
Congress now has the president’s budget proposal and will spend the coming weeks holding hearings and building its own 2018 defense budget.
McCain and other defense hawks have been pushing for more spending on defense, but Sen. Jack Reed, the top Democrat on Armed Services, said Thursday that finding the money could be an issue.
“I understand there may be calls by some to increase the Army’s active-duty end-strength in 2018 above the president’s budget request,” he said. “I caution that there must be a plan in place to use these additional personnel, and to pay for them.”
