As the Republican Congress moves forward on a defense policy bill that seeks to increase military spending using an “off the books” solution, the president has picked up momentum in his veto threat of this approach. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi already announced that she will actively whip against the legislation this week as the bill hits the House floor.
In the same spirit, the Secretary of Defense recently told Congress that its plan to increase defense spending through supplemental (OCO) funding is a “road to nowhere,” since the base budget will remain at an unsustainably low level. He added that he also does not want any spending increase in either of the two defense budgets unless it comes with a similar bump in non-defense spending.
The House Appropriations Committee has decided to match the authorizers and mark up to the full amount in allowable OCO funding of $39 billion above the president’s fiscal year 2016 budget request. This decision sounds like a positive development, but very little has changed to make the actual enactment of those “extra” funds a reality.
This predictable fight has an equally predictable outcome. And neither is a win for either party—or for the troops.
Since President Obama took office, the politics of defense have been wrapped around the axles of larger questions about the size and reach of the US government, including entitlement spending and taxes. These unanswered questions prevent either side from getting what it wants, leaving all involved sadly thrilled at the prospect of a meager, feel-good fix like the original Ryan-Murray budget deal two years ago. As I’ve outlined, a true sequestration fix is certainly within reach—but even this approach will only meet the Pentagon’s bare minimum and artificially reduced needs.
Once this unnecessarily painful and drawn-out process leads to where all parties know it will end—in a budget deal that Band-Aids defense while allowing for modest non-defense growth along with deficit reduction—this limp to the finish line will be no shining victory for the military. As Secretary Carter averred in his testimony, an OCO Band-Aid fix “doesn’t provide a stable, multi-year budget horizon, is managerially unsound, and also unfairly dispiriting to our force.” While Congressional politics may run on a yearly cycle, the needs of the US military do not.
A budget that seeks to patch defense and allow modest growth in the base budget by amending legal spending means that many necessary resources for those in uniform will be left behind. Attempts to jam leftovers into the war budget will be half-measures spent on some of the wrong priorities that will be chipped away at during the course of the budget process.
Mini-budget deals are patchwork fixes; they are not restorative to the health of the all-volunteer military after years of funding, capability and readiness reductions. All indicators are that those in uniform will have to wait another two years, at least, for this overdue rebuilding of America’s national defense.
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