Conservative budget hawks on Friday rejected a major defense spending package outlined by a senior Republican leader as too expensive and offered a counter-proposal, according to sources familiar with the negotiations.
Both sides agree that baseline national defense funding should exceed the $603 billion requested by President Trump. House Armed Services Chairman Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, has called for $640 billion in baseline national defense funding, but the budget hawks’ proposal is $621 billion. Thornberry also wants $65 billion for overseas contingency operations, a war fund that might provide a path to compromise, according to GOP lawmakers and aides familiar with the negotiations. The fiscal hawks are mulling a counter offer that would maintain their $621 billion baseline bill, but provide $75 billion in OCO funding — $10 billion more than Thornberry’s OCO plans, for an overall spending package that comes in $9 billion below his alternative idea.
“The Budget Committee’s proposal currently includes $65 billion for OCO,” a Republican aide familiar with the ongoing talks explained. “Any discussion today was about potentially plussing up that number from there, but nothing has been decided.”
Baseline national defense funding encompasses the Defense Department and nuclear-related accounts in the Department of Energy.
The use of OCO funding to increase overall defense spending has irritated fiscal conservatives over the years, as they regard it as a “gimmick” to circumvent spending caps established by a 2011 debt ceiling and spending deal.
A Republican conference meeting Friday morning provided a forum for an immediate resumption of the fight over defense spending. “Great back and forth today between Thornberry and [Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif.,],” a second Republican lawmaker told the Washington Examiner. Thornberry’s staff originally planned on briefing reporters on the topline Friday at 11 a.m., then pushed it back to 1 p.m., and now that briefing won’t occur until Monday.
Thornberry expected the fight, however, and he hinted that his spending proposal — which would provide the Pentagon a total of $705 billion in the coming fiscal year — is an opening offer in those talks. But he won’t agree to less defense spending unless the budget hawks agree to a long-term spending increase, but eliminating or at least raising partially the spending caps that Congress imposed during a 2011 fiscal fight.
“We’re still talking to see whether we can come to a common understanding,” Thornberry said Thursday, referring to his counterparts on the budget and appropriations panels. “For me, if I am going to agree to do less than I think is necessary to fix the problems facing the military today … I want something to where [sequestration] is not hanging over our heads.”
Editor’s note: The story has been updated to clarify that the fiscal conservatives are considering $10 billion in OCO funding as an addition to Thornberry’s $65 billion OCO proposal, not as a substitute for it.
