The Democratic chairman of the House Armed Services Committee says President Trump will not get his border wall funding, his Space Force, or his way with padding the Pentagon’s warfighting account to exceed congressionally imposed spending limits.
“What the White House seems to think it wants to do is stick to the budget caps while also funding defense. That’s not going to happen. It’s the wrong way to budget,” Adam Smith said at the McAleese/Credit Suisse defense conference in Washington Wednesday.
The president’s proposed fiscal year 2020 budget shifts nearly $100 billion in base funds into the Overseas Contingency Operations account in a unabashed bid to boost defense spending to $750 billion and skirt restrictions imposed by the 2011 Budget Control Act.
Smith dismissed the proposal as “FOCO, fake OCO” and said there’s no way it would pass his committee.
“The problem with that is, OK, it’s an opening gambit, whatever. How does the White House work its way back to something sensible?” Smith asked. “And if they don’t, we are staring at possibly another shutdown or best-case scenario another CR [continuing resolution] and a delayed defense budget.”
While insisting the House Armed Services Committee would continue its long tradition of bipartisanship, Smith said Trump’s inclusion of $7.8 billion in emergency funding for border barriers is another nonstarter, noting that the top Republican on the committee, Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, is also opposed to funding a wall with the Pentagon budget.
“So, there is bipartisan opposition to doing that, and our bill will not fund that,” Smith said.
And while Smith agrees the U.S. military needs to put more resources into space, he said Trump’s planned structure for a new Space Force is costly, top-heavy overkill.
“I cannot imagine that what they proposed is going to happen,” Smith said. “What I don’t like about the proposal from the White House is it’s too expensive. It creates more bureaucracy. We don’t want to just, you know, create more people. We want to figure out how to better emphasize space.”
“We don’t need three more four-star generals,” he added. “Three more four-star generals are not going to make us stronger in space.”
