The House on Wednesday is considering a fiscal 2016 defense appropriations bill under the threat of a White House veto and near-certain opposition from Democrats objecting to plans to shift some $37 billion in operations and maintenance spending into a war funding account.
Republicans, meanwhile, are lashing out against the veto threat, saying President Obama and Democrats supporting him are holding defense spending “hostage” in order to force the GOP to accept higher spending on domestic programs.
The bill is the latest battleground in a broader budget fight between the White House, backed by congressional Democrats, and the Republicans who control Congress. Republicans came up with what the White House is calling a budget “gimmick” to fix what military leaders are calling a crisis in defense readiness caused by mandatory sequestration cuts enacted in 2011. Democrats want a broader “grand bargain” on the budget that would reverse cuts to social programs as well.
Since the war funding account is not subject to the mandatory spending caps, using that account for regular operations and maintenance allows Congress to get around them without addressing them directly.
In all, the bill allots $578.6 billion for the Pentagon and nuclear weapons programs of the Energy Department, an increase of $24.4 billion from fiscal 2015 and $800 million more than Obama requested. It includes $88.4 billion in overseas contingency operations, roughly double the amount Obama requested.
The White House late Tuesday said Obama would veto that bill, echoing threats against a House-passed bill that authorizes the spending shift, and a similar bill under consideration in the Senate.
With the political will to reverse sequestration nowhere to be seen, Republican leaders insist they need to keep the military up to strength in an increasingly dangerous world and are reacting angrily to Obama’s veto threat.
“It’s wrong to use defense as leverage or as blackmail to try to force higher spending in other programs,” House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, told reporters Tuesday, noting that the bill gives Obama what he asked for to finance the Pentagon.
“To say, ‘No, I’m not going to take what I asked for unless you give me what I want for EPA or IRS’ is just the height of irresponsibility,” he said.
“Is he interested in trying to provoke some sort of dramatic confrontation for political reasons? I don’t know. Maybe. … But just think about how dangerous the world is.”
Late Tuesday, the Rules Committee, on an 8-4 party-line vote, approved a rule for debate on the bill that would allow members relatively wide freedom to offer amendments, though with a strict time limit for debate on each one.
