Senate Armed Companies Committee Chair Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) knocked President Trump’s 2026 price range proposal on Friday for not doing sufficient to maintain tempo with army threats from China, Russia and different adversaries.
Wicker warned the spending degree referred to as by the White Home price range would “decrease President Trump’s military options and his negotiating leverage.”
“President Trump successfully campaigned on a Peace Through Strength agenda, but his advisers at the Office of Management and Budget were apparently not listening. For the defense budget, OMB has requested a fifth year straight of Biden Administration funding, leaving military spending flat, which is a cut in real terms,” Wicker stated in an announcement.
Workplace of Administration and Funds Director Russell Vought wrote in a letter to Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) that Trump’s price range would improve protection spending by 13 p.c for fiscal 2026, bringing it to $1.01 trillion.
However a Senate GOP aide stated the White Home price range workplace has requested $893 billion in baseline protection spending for subsequent yr via the annual appropriations course of and is padding that quantity with funding that administration officers hope to incorporate within the price range reconciliation invoice that may embody tax cuts and different priorities.
The aide famous that the appropriated price range for protection in fiscal 2025 was $893 billion, and the White Home proposal for protection discretionary sending in fiscal 2026 is $893 billion, not counting no matter cash could come from the separate reconciliation course of.
Wicker and different Senate protection hawks have repeatedly stated the $150 billion in new protection spending they plan to incorporate within the price range reconciliation invoice needs to be a complement to common protection spending, which they argue ought to develop on an annual foundation to fulfill nationwide safety wants.
“I have said for months that reconciliation defense spending does not replace the need for real growth in the military’s base budget,” Wicker stated Friday.
Wicker and protection hawks on Capitol Hill envision the protection cash within the reconciliation invoice going to new protection priorities, resembling Trump’s Golden Dome missile protection challenge and to not make up for shortfalls in annual budgeting.
And the $150 billion in direct protection spending that’s slated to be included within the price range reconciliation invoice is predicted to final for the subsequent 4 years.
The White Home price range proposal would pull $119 billion from the protection spending within the reconciliation invoice to account for what it describes as a $1 trillion protection price range for subsequent yr, in line with the Senate supply.
“The Big, Beautiful Reconciliation Bill was always meant to change fundamentally the direction of the Pentagon on programs like Golden Dome, border support, and unmanned capabilities – not to paper over OMB’s intent to shred to the bone our military capabilities and our support to service members,” Wicker stated in an announcement, referring to the White Home plan to lean on the price range reconciliation bundle to plus up protection spending for fiscal yr 2026.
Wicker in his assertion stated the White Home “is not requesting a trillion-dollar budget.”
“It is requesting a budget of $892.6 billion, which is a cut in real terms,” he stated. “This price range would lower President Trump’s army choices and his negotiating leverage.”
“We face an Axis of Aggressors led by the Chinese Communist Party, who have already started a trade war rather than negotiate in good faith,” he added. “We want an actual Peace Via Energy agenda to make sure Xi Jinping doesn’t launch a army warfare in opposition to us in Asia, past his current army help to the Russians, the Iranians, Hamas, and the Houthis.”
Vought in a briefing name with reporters Friday argued that the White Home price range supplies a “more durable way to get to a trillion dollars in defense spending.”
He referred to as the proposed 13 p.c improve in protection spending for subsequent yr, which incorporates the supplemental funding Republicans hope to connect to the reconciliation invoice to increase the 2017 tax charges and safe the U.S.-Mexico border, as a “very healthy increase.”
“We want to make sure that it is going towards capabilities that [the Department of Defense] needs, says it wants, says are vital,” Vought stated. “And we are changing the way that this place works, and we’re happy to continue to explain that to the Hill. And I’m not surprised that we’ll have to do some work on that front.”
Alex Gangitano contributed.
