House Armed Services Committee Chairman Rep. Mac Thornberry pressed Republicans on the House Budget Committee Friday to approve a defense budget of at least $566 billion, in a letter that his Democratic counterpart called “an exercise in theater” if spending caps are not addressed.
The budget committee, led by Chairman Tom Price, R-Ga., is expected to release its spending guidance in the next two weeks. The committee’s figure will set the ceiling on spending for a host of modernization needs the Pentagon has pushed back due to years of war. So far, the committee has seemed reluctant to consider raising the spending limits beyond sequestration levels, and in the few public statements on the budget, has emphasized returning federal spending to lower levels.
At sequestration’s limits, defense spending would be held to $499 billion, an amount that each service chief as described as disastrous for national defense. Even if the budget committee sets higher spending limits, it won’t happen unless Congress finds a way to balance the higher spending with cuts elsewhere or raises the sequester limits.
Early indications that the Defense Department will not receive more money began to emerge this week as the services pressed their fiscal 2016 needs to defense committees.
At a House Appropriations defense subcommittee hearing Friday, subcommittee chairman Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen, R-N.J., said while he is sympathetic tothe Air Force’s needs for $10 billion extra this year to speed purchases of the Joint Strike Fighter, modernize nuclear ballistic missiles and pursue next-generation long-range strike bombers, “unless there’s some dramatic legislative change, the law will require we mark up bills this year to the level of [$499 billion.]”
Frelinghuysen pressed the Air Force to work with lawmakers to make decisions that “maintain readiness at the highest levels,” But the committee, if sequestration is not lifted, he said, will have to “cut $10 billion with you, or will cut $10 billion without you. But we will need to do it.”
Thornberry said the $566 billion was a minimum needed for the military to meet the complex threats it faces, and a $577 billion baseline would be preferable. The higher amount would give the armed services an additional $16 billion increase over President Obama’s fiscal 2016 request of $561 billion for both Pentagon and Department of Energy defense-related requests.
Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, the House Armed Services Committee’s top Democrat, said neither the guidance nor the budget committee’s work will mean anything if sequestration is not lifted.
“They can work the budget committee all they want to work the budget committee,” Smith said. “If the budget committee comes out and says, OK, here’s your number, its $577 – it doesn’t matter if sequestration remains the law.”
“If [Republicans] are unwilling to end sequestration then the budget resolution doesn’t really matter,” Smith said. “It is not Boehner’s position. So the budget resolution is just an exercise in theater.”
