Let the budget battles begin.
Before Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan had read a word of his testimony before the House Armed Services Committee on Tuesday, Chairman Adam Smith, D-Wash., put him on notice that President Trump’s plan to get around budget caps by putting almost $100 billion into the war-fighting account was not going to cut it.
Using the overseas contingency operations account, known as OCO, as “a slush fund … is breathtakingly irresponsible,” Smith said in his opening statement.
“I can assure you the Democratic-controlled House is not going to pass a budget that creates $174 billion OCO and guts every other aspect of funding,” said Smith, referring to the unprecedented move to add $98 billion in regular budget items to an account intended for one-time expenses for overseas contingencies.
“OCO should not be a way to sneak around the budget caps,” said Smith. “And yet that is the heart and soul of the budget going forward.”
When it came time for Shanahan to respond to the criticism, Smith didn’t ask him to justify the plan, saying he recognized that the secretary was in the position of having to defend a policy he did not create.
Pentagon officials say they drew up the budget based on what was required to support the National Defense Strategy, and the White House directed how the budget would be structured to avoid having to raise domestic spending in return for raising the budget caps on the Pentagon’s budget.
