Additional defense funds in reconciliation bill ‘may not be enough’: SASC chairman

Vice Chief of Naval Operations Jim Kilby and other services vice chiefs provide testimony at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee-Subcommittee for Readiness of the Joint Force at the Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C., May 16, 2024. (U.S. Navy photo by Chief Mass Communication Specialist William Spears)

WASHINGTON — With the Pentagon increasingly likely to be locked into a yearlong continuing resolution for the first time ever, the head of the Senate Armed Services Committee said today that Congress may need to beef up the amount of funding it is pursuing for defense through a parallel process known as budget reconciliation.

The House on Tuesday passed a stopgap spending bill expiring on Sept. 30 that would provide $892.5 billion for defense in fiscal 2025 — slightly higher than FY24 levels but below the $895 billion permitted by the Fiscal Responsibility Act. And while that gap may not seem huge by Pentagon standards, SASC Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss. is seizing on it to make the case that even more money needs to be added during the reconciliation process.

“The real flaw in in the CR that we’ll be voting on later this week is that it doesn’t provide enough money, regardless of the anomalies and the tiny plus ups here and there,” Wicker said during a SASC readiness subcommittee hearing today. “Based on what is in this continuing resolution, $150 billion in the reconciliation bill may not be enough, and I’m hearing some comforting words from the administration, that they realize that too.”

The House and Senate have each passed separate budget resolutions, kickstarting a path for Republicans to enact a laundry list of Trump administration funding priorities through a process called reconciliation, which allows the majority party with control of Congress to pass legislation without the threat of filibuster. The Senate budget resolution includes an additional $150 billion for defense, while the House version includes $100 billion.

Wicker noted that the Trump administration has been aggressive in its goal of driving down government spending, adding that “we all want fiscal responsibility.” However, he said, an additional boost to reconciliation funding for defense may been needed to address threats from China, Russia, Iran and North Korea.

Wicker, a defense hawk, has advocated for the United States to raise defense spending to 5 percent of its gross domestic production. Last year, as the committee’s top Republican, he pushed SASC to adopt an NDAA that would have supported a $923 billion defense topline (in conference, the House and Senate committees agreed on a lower funding level that would conform to FRA restrictions). In February, he told Breaking Defense that he hoped to secure a total $200 billion increase for defense in the budget reconciliation process, with funds to be used in FY25 and FY26.

A continuing resolution is typically a stopgap that extends funding at prior-year levels for a short period of time. To try to mitigate negative impacts to the US military, the yearlong CR under consideration includes some additional funds — including $8 billion for US Central Command and US European Command, as well as plus-ups to certain shipbuilding programs. It also includes language meant to give the Pentagon additional flexibility, such as a provision that would allow the department to start certain new programs — a practice typically forbidden under a CR.

While the House was able to pass the CR Tuesday evening in a mostly-party line vote, Senate Republicans will need support from a handful of Democrats in order to meet the 60 vote threshold that allows the Senate to proceed to a final vote on a bill.

On the precipice of a March 14 deadline to pass a spending measure and avert a government shutdown, SASC members from both sides of the aisle groaned about the prospect of voting for a full-year CR.

“From a readiness standpoint, none of us think this is helpful,” said Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, who leads the readiness subcommittee. “What would be worse, in my view, is a government shutdown.”

Later in the hearing, Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said he agreed with Sullivan’s statement but thinks a short-term CR would have been preferable than a full year measure.

“Why do we have to accept, you know, half-assed over catastrophic?” he asked.

A panel of the military services’ No. 2 officers told lawmakers that they were still working to understand the impact of the CR. Army Vice Chief of Staff James Mingus said the “degree and severity is unknown,” with much dependent on the specific language of the bill and whether it contains “anomalies,” or exceptions to CR-related funding restrictions.

Vice Chief of Naval Operations Adm. James Kilby said the services’ readiness accounts “are most vulnerable under a CR or sequestration,” and that 11 ships are at risk for missing maintenance availabilities under a full year CR. For the Air Force, a yearlong CR without anomalies would have $4 billion impact to readiness, said Lt. Gen. Adrian Spain, the services’ deputy chief of staff for operations.

Mingus and Kilby said the services would benefit from greater budget flexibility, specifically for items such as drones or counterdrone systems, that would allow them to obligate funding more quickly or transfer that money to other systems if threats changed.

Gen. Christopher Mahoney, the assistant commandant of the Marine Corps, cautioned that, while anomalies and budget flexibility are helpful, there is only so much the Marine Corps could do with a smaller budget.

“If there is only so much top line from which to flex … we’re going to rob from one account to pay for another,” he said.