Facing the prospect of another stopgap budget measure to fund the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Ash Carter says he will beg Congress to compromise in the interest of national security when he testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee Thursday. He also said it’s time for Congress to get off his back.
“Geez, it’s the 25th of September, so the fiscal year ends in a few days, but we don’t have a budget for next year again for the eighth consecutive year,” Carter grumbled during a live interactive broadcast to U.S. troops around the world.
“I can’t control that, but I’m pleading with Congress,” Carter said. “We need a budget. We can’t have this up, down, herky-jerky, not certain whether we’re going to get a budget.”
Carter said he will once again appeal for bipartisan compromise, which he said is “the only way anything gets done ultimately.”
And he also continues to bristle about what he sees as micromanaging by Congress, in passing reforms that dictate not just what the Pentagon does, but how it does it.
“We think we’d make the best judgments in here about that,” Carter told the troops. “I wish that respect would be shown for the judgment of our leadership here about what is the best investments and we would get some budget stability.”
On Thursday, Carter will testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee, along with Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford, one week after the military service chiefs told the same committee that mandatory spending caps were forcing the armed services to mortgage future combat readiness to make sure deployed troops have the training and equipment they need.
Carter called readiness his “top priority,” and said the Pentagon is doing its best to manage the risks given limited resources.
“We never want anybody to go into harm’s way who isn’t fully trained for the mission they’re going into. That’s got to be job one; that’s our highest priority,” Carter said.
On Tuesday, Committee Chairman Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said the compromise defense authorization bill won’t be finished before the lame duck session due to disagreements over keeping the sage grouse on the endangered list. On the appropriations side, Senate Democrats have blocked three attempts to move the bill forward over objections to increasing defense spending without increasing non-defense spending.
