Rather than cutting Pentagon spending at President Trump’s direction, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis will instead submit a fiscal 2020 budget proposal higher than even military planners had originally sought, according to a report.
Mattis’ proposed budget is set to come in at $750 billion, Politico reported Sunday. That would represent a bump up from an initial $733 billion allocation Mattis and other military brass were hoping to protect. Their concerns came after President Trump tweeted last week that the Pentagon’s $716 billion fiscal 2019 budget was “crazy.”
The boost in proposed funding followed a White House lunch last Tuesday between Trump; Mattis; Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla.; and Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, the respective Republican leaders of the Senate and House armed services committees. The change also comes after Trump in October asked all Cabinet departments to cut their budgets by about 5 percent. In the Defense Department’s case, that new top line was set to be $700 billion.
Although Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Michael Andrews said Sunday that officials were still “working” with the Office of Management and Budget to confirm a number, a source told Politico that Trump floated announcing the $750 billion benchmark this week as a “negotiating tactic” so congressional Democrats do not push the final allocation below $733 billion. This is because lawmakers would have to agree to lift spending caps placed on DOD before the $750 billion budget could be passed into law.
Republicans on Capitol Hill and military heads have been advocating for preserving defense funding, particularly following Trump’s 2016 campaign promise to restore the “depleted” U.S. military.
“[W]e are in a crisis situation and cutting the defense budget now is basically a decision not to defend the nation, and that’s not a path we can go down,” Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., a member of the House Armed Services Committee, told Fox News earlier in December.
