House Democrats said Tuesday they will fight this year to make sure funding increases for defense and domestic budgets are equal this year and will oppose any Republican effort to boost defense spending above domestic accounts.
“We think there ought to be one-to-one parity,” said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md. “We need to get to the caps.”
Funding for the federal government faces a new cliff this year in the form of a new round of appropriations legislation that must pass by Sept. 30.
Cuts to defense and domestic spending are required under the Budget Control Act of 2011, and while Congress has moved to lift the caps most years, the two parties are likely to spar over exactly how to do that.
Lawmakers in both parties must strike a deal to lift those caps in the coming weeks to avoid having to cut $126 billion in federal spending overall. Like past deals, Democrats have pushed to ensure domestic spending gets exactly the same increase as the defense budget gets.
Republicans in the past have sought to increase defense spending while slashing domestic budgets. But that’s unlikely to happen this year.
Senate Republicans said Congress must find a bipartisan deal on lifting the caps soon in order to give appropriators a top-line spending number needed to write legislation to fund the government in fiscal 2020.
Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., said the caps pose an additional challenge to the already difficult task of striking a spending accord with Democrats, who control the House for the first time in eight years.
But the caps need to be lifted, he said.
“If we are going to make our obligations, unless we have draconian cuts everywhere, it’s going to be a challenge this year,” Shelby said.
[Opinion: Bernie Sanders doesn’t understand defense spending]
