Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., suggested Wednesday that he will oppose President Trump’s plan to cut next year’s planned defense budget by tens of billions of dollars.
The budget for the Pentagon, overseas wars, and the nuclear arsenal should be at least $733 billion in 2019 despite the president’s surprise order last month slashing it to $700 billion, Inhofe, who succeeded John McCain as Senate Armed Services chairman, said in a statement.
The $733 billion figure originally proposed by the administration “should be considered a floor, not a ceiling, for funding our troops,” he said.
[Related: Trump’s defense budget comments leave experts scratching their heads]
His comments are in effect the unofficial kickoff of the 2019 defense budget season on Capitol Hill and show that Senate Republicans could thwart Trump’s plans for a roughly 5 percent cut Pentagon-related spending.
Inhofe was also responding to a newly released report from a commission created by Congress to review the national defense strategy. It found that the country may not be ready for a major war and should take the defense budget more seriously, despite two years of Pentagon funding increases.
“In particular, I am troubled by the commission’s unequivocal assessment that the National Defense Strategy is not adequately resourced, and that our nation is ‘very near the point of strategic insolvency,’” Inhofe said. “I agree with the commission’s report that there must be ‘greater urgency and seriousness in funding national defense’ in order to ensure we can undertake essential nuclear and conventional modernization while rectifying readiness shortfalls.”
The Pentagon received orders last month to make the cuts last month and is working to come up with a final budget plan, which is expected to be delivered to Capitol Hill in February.
However, Deputy Defense Secretary Pat Shanahan has said the military has not given up on its higher $733 billion budget request, which it spent months creating, and will be working on two separate spending plans in the meantime.
Using his chairmanship, Inhofe — if he chooses — could lead a movement in the Senate to back the Pentagon with a more robust budget.
The ultimate fate of Trump’s plan to cut federal spending, called the “nickel plan,” and the size of the defense budget will also depend on the new Democratic majority in the House.
Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., is expected to become the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee in January and has often said publicly that the larger defense budgets of the past two years are unsustainable due to rising national debt, deficit spending, and recent tax cuts.
