The Senate Appropriations Committee on Tuesday released a $651 billion defense appropriations bill that would pare back funding for aircraft, ships and troops already authorized by Congress for 2018.
The bill would cut funding for 12 F-35 joint strike fighters, four Navy ships and 10,800 service members from the National Defense Authorization Act, which Congress passed last week.
However, it would still pay for higher numbers of each than what was requested by President Trump earlier this year, and it also exceeds a Budget Control Act spending cap of $549 billion for the Defense Department.
Congress has until Dec. 8 to strike a deal on raising that cap and pass final funding legislation. Otherwise, it will have to pass another stopgap continuing resolution to buy more time for negotiations.
So far, a deal has been elusive as lawmakers wrestle over other issues such as tax reform and immigration, and defense analysts believe another continuing resolution lasting weeks or months will be needed to finalize the amount of funding for defense.
Top Democrats on the committee called the new “chairman’s mark” appropriations bill a step forward, but said they expect any final deal with Republicans to include money for non-defense and legislation dealing with undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children.
“The right way forward is to conclude a budget deal and then pass an omnibus as soon as possible that contains equal investments in both the military and America’s many critical domestic needs,” Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the Appropriations Committee vice chairman, and Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the defense subcommittee chairman, said in a joint statement. “That must include the bipartisan Dream Act to which the president has already committed.”
