Possible cuts to defense spending included in the House rules package that Republicans passed on Monday night have previewed fissures within the new majority.
The rules package that will govern the operations of the new Congress narrowly passed the House after Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) used it to barter a deal with conservatives in exchange for the speaker’s gavel. Proposals included capping defense spending at the 2022 level for the next 10 years, which would amount to a roughly $75 billion, or 10%, cut to defense programs, although it’s possible the cuts won’t affect the Pentagon.
President Joe Biden signed the fiscal year 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, which funds the department, late last month that allocated $858 billion for DOD. The year before, it was at $782 billion.
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Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), a House Freedom Caucus leader, confirmed that defense spending is at risk of being cut days earlier, saying that “everything” is on the table due to the country’s debt.
“Maybe if we focused on that, helping the troops who do so much of the work out there for our great country, and maybe focus on getting rid of all the woke policies in our military, we’d have the weapons systems and the training that needs to be done so we’re ready to deal with our adversaries around the planet,” he stated.
Several House Republican defense spending hawks have already said they’re against any measures that would limit defense spending.
Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) voted against the rules package citing the possible cuts.
“This has a proposed billions of dollars cut to defense, which I think is a horrible idea,” Gonzales told CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday. “When you have aggressive Russia and Ukraine, you’ve got a growing threat of China in the Pacific — you know, I’m going to visit Taiwan here in a couple of weeks — how am I going to look at our allies in the eye and say, I need you to increase your defense budget, but yet America is going to decrease ours?”
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) told reporters on Tuesday lawmakers hadn’t discussed cutting defense spending.
House Appropriations’ top Democrat, Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, warned the same day that McCarthy’s deal represents a $130 billion cut to all discretionary spending, including defense.
Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI), previously an active-duty Marine Corps intelligence officer for seven years, celebrated the passing of the rules package and noted that there isn’t enough support on Capitol Hill to pass defense spending cuts.
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“Anyone suggesting this package cuts defense spending is ignoring the math: there are not 218 members that support defense cuts and any budget resolution that tries to do so will fail,” he said in a statement.
Defense spending has already become a top issue in the new GOP-led House as the previous Congress provided significant aid to Ukraine. A small number of Republicans, ahead of November’s midterm elections, indicated that their support for continued aid to Ukraine was anything but a certainty, specifically emphasizing their desire for additional oversight.
