22 Nov 17. Cochran recommends budget-cap busting defense bill. Ahead of a bipartisan budget deal expected before year’s end, U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Thad Cochran is recommending a $650.7bn spending package for the military in fiscal 2018. The proposal announced Tuesday includes $581.3bn in base Defense Department funding, $64.9bn in so-called Overseas Contingency Operations wartime funding and, as Trump requested, $4.5bn in emergency funding for missile defense.
Cochran’s draft bill was never put to the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee, which he also heads, for a vote and never subject to the amendment process. If anything, it reflects the work product of the appropriations committee, with minority input — a marker for the Senate GOP’s position in ongoing budget negotiations between congressional leaders and the White House.
“This proposal recommends funding for programs necessary to protect U.S. national security interests. However, we still require a budget agreement to establish a top-line funding level for national defense spending,” said Cochran, R-Mississippi.
“I am optimistic we will be able to write a final bill that supports a strong U.S. force structure and makes needed investments in readiness, shipbuilding programs, aircraft procurement and missile defense,” he said.
The bill received immediate pushback from senior Democratic appropriators, who noted that it exceeds statutory budget caps for defense by $70 bn. Without a deal to ease caps, it would trigger an automatic 13 percent cut, known as sequestration, they said.
“This is a step forward, though we remain deeply concerned about the process,” said a joint statement from the Senate Appropriations Committee’s vice chairman, Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, who is the No. 2 Senate Democrat and vice chairman of the defense appropriations subcommittee.
In July, Leahy offered a proposal to increase defense spending in 2018 by $54 bn above spending caps and provide an equal increase in non-defense programs, or “parity.”
Leahy and Durbin on Tuesday again called for parity between the defense and non-defense sides of the budget, as well as protections for undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as minors — a demand fueling fears of an impasse and government shutdown.
Though federal spending runs out Dec. 8, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan has hinted there will be another stopgap continuing resolution, or CR, to keep the government open while lawmakers wrangle. He has said he expects a spending deal to be final by year’s end.
The bill mirrors the 2.4 percent pay raise mandated in the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act, the massive annual defense policy bill that passed both chambers of Congress earlier this month.
Comparisons between the top-line of this bill and the $700bn NDAA are not easy, as the appropriations bill does not contain all of the same national security accounts as the defense policy bill.
Air Force
The recommendation notably contains far fewer additional F-35s than the NDAA. The appropriations bill included only $1bn for four additional F-35B short takeoff and landing variants and another four F-35C carrier landing variants — meaning that the Air Force received no additional F-35A conventional takeoff and landing models, though it listed 14 A-models on its unfunded priorities list. The NDAA, by contrast, added 20 F-35s, 10 of which were A-models.
To soften the blow, Cochran’s mark added an additional $120m for Air Force F-35 advance procurement “to increase planned procurements in FY2019,” according to a summary of the bill.
The committee also added $100m for one HC-130J search and rescue aircraft and $35m for Compass Call modifications.
Navy
Cochran’s proposal includes two littoral combat ships, one less than was authorized in the 2018 NDAA conference report. It also buys an aircraft carrier, two Virginia-class attack submarines and two Arleigh Burke-class destroyers.
H