Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says the Budget Control Act, which imposed spending caps that both parties have complained about, may not survive the 115th Congress.
In a Wednesday interview with the Washington Examiner, McConnell said lawmakers are in talks to increase defense spending, a move that would bust budget caps imposed by the 2011 law and lead to demands by Democrats to increase domestic spending as well.
When asked if the caps would be in place at the end of the year, McConnell said, “That’s a good question.”
The law, also known as budget sequestration, calls for about $984 billion in cuts to all discretionary spending, including defense, every year through fiscal 2021. But Democrats and many Republicans hate it, and say the across-the-board reductions essentially take a hatchet to the federal budget without regard to which programs might be more valuable than others.
Defense hawks say the law has undermined the strength of the military, even though each year lawmakers have shuffled around funding to boost the Pentagon’s budget without busting the cap.
Democrats are equally eager to bolster spending on domestic programs and would insist on parity with any boost in military funding this year, further endangering the spending cap.
McConnell didn’t rule out another attempt to increase funds for the military and stay under the cap.
“I think there is a desire to increase defense spending,” McConnell told the Washington Examiner. “And exactly how that is done compared to the domestic side and to the Budget Control Act is under discussion.”
