The growing outcry over a possible continuing budget resolution is set to get considerably louder Wednesday when the military service chiefs visit Capitol Hill.
The top officers for the Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps are bringing the message to the House Armed Services Committee that another stop-gap budget measure at the end of April would be devastating.
It will be a chance to say publicly what the services have told lawmakers privately: War operations will suffer, aircraft will be grounded, training and recruiting will halt, and troops will suffer part of the burden of a multi-billion-dollar shortfall with bonus freezes, according to documents provided to Congress.
A continuing resolution through September would force “actions similar to those taken in 2013 during sequestration,” when damage from federal spending caps began to occur, the Air Force reported.
To save $131 million, Air Force drone reconnaissance missions in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan would be severely affected and the service would be unable to keep the ground presence there ordered by President Trump, it has the documents say.
In any other year, the service chiefs would be on the Hill advocating for their annual budget proposal. But the focus instead on the continuing resolution shows the growing concern among Republican leadership on the Armed Services Committee and defense hawks that it poses an immediate threat if Congress cannot strike a budget deal before current funding authority runs out on April 28.
Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, the committee chairman, said the services are “painting an alarming picture” of how much damage a continuing resolution would do on top of years of budget cuts.
“Passing the defense appropriations bill simply has to get done this month, but then Congress has much more work to do to repair the damage to America’s military,” Thornberry said in a written statement to the Washington Examiner Friday.
The Senate Armed Services Committee heard similar warnings about a continuing resolution Tuesday from Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, during a closed briefing, according to committee staff.
After that briefing, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, ratcheted up opposition by saying he would risk shutting down the government at the end of April to oppose passing another continuing resolution.
The service chiefs’ public testimony could add political pressure as time runs precariously short for a deal to head off the stop-gap measure. The House and Senate will recess for two weeks in mid-April, leaving just two weeks for work.
That means chances are dwindling that lawmakers can pass Defense Department funding and 10 other appropriations bills to keep the government running for the rest of the 2017 fiscal year, making the stop-gap measure more appealing.
So far, the House has approved a $578 billion defense appropriations bill that would fund the military through September, but it has not been taken up for a vote by the Senate.
That bill is not itself controversial but Democrats are unlikely to support passing it without some assurances on funding domestic programs.
Lawmakers may turn to an omnibus appropriations bill for the entire federal government — another heavy lift in such a short time — or opt to again keep the lights on with a continuing resolution, which again locks in last year’s spending levels.
Another continuing resolution would pile on uncertainty at a time when the services say they are facing dire shortfalls in training, equipment and funding. Budget caps have kept down spending since 2013, but the military has maintained high operations tempo, wearing down its readiness to fight.
The documents, provided to Congress and obtained by the Washington Examiner, paint a number of nightmare scenarios for the services.
The Army, which could be short $3 billion, has told lawmakers a continuing resolution would force it to cancel training exercises with allies in Europe this summer and could affect brigade combat team rotations there.
The Navy would cancel ship deployments and shut down nearly half of its non-deployed carrier air wings, meaning ship gaps in Europe and the Middle East. It would also mean freezing many sailor bonuses and halting Blue Angel flight shows and fleet week events across the country.
The Marine Corps said it would ground its 24 squadrons in the U.S. and stop flight operations for any aircraft not deployed or set to deploy.
Thornberry began warning against a continuing budget resolution this month along with McCain.
Both are pushing for increases in defense spending — a $640 billion national security base budget — that exceed the $603 billion the Trump administration has proposed for 2018.
Now, their political energy appears focused on averting what they and the military see as one of the worst-case scenarios for the defense budget in April.
Still, budget deals failed to materialized at critical times last year and the military has been given two consecutive continuing resolutions since the fall.
Over the past few years, the budget uncertainty has become a top grievance whenever military officials testify about funding on Capitol Hill.
