Congressional Republicans, sick of the annual push-pull with Democrats over defense and domestic spending priorities, are planning to include a significant defense spending boost in their party-line budget reconciliation bill.
The goal is to provide a mandatory infusion of roughly $100-200 billion to bolster U.S. defense capabilities, keep pace with adversaries like China and fulfill President-elect Donald Trump’s vision of “peace through strength.”
“The future of warfare is different,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said on Fox News’ “Hannity.”
“We have to think about it differently and fund it differently. It’s going to be drone warfare, cyber warfare, all those things involved, but we have to maintain the greatest fighting force on the planet,” the Louisiana Republican said.
Republicans are planning to use the budget reconciliation process to pass the defense funding — along with a host of other party priorities, like border and energy policies — because it is not subject to the Senate filibuster. That means they won’t need cooperation from Democrats if their party is united.
If successfully enacted, the mandatory defense funding could ease some of the pressure to increase defense spending through the annual discretionary appropriations process.
The opening position for Democrats in most appropriation negotiations has been to demand that defense spending increases be matched by an equal boost to non-defense spending, which Republicans hate.
“The Democrats hold [defense funding] hostage,” House Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole, Oklahoma Republican, told The Washington Times. “We live in a very dangerous world right now and we have a terrible debt situation right now, so the idea that you have to pay to defend the country — Democrats are attracted to it; I think Republicans are pretty appalled by it.”
Mr. Cole said he’s not been involved in detailed discussions at this stage about what a mandatory defense funding boost would look like but “I’ve heard all kinds of numbers.”
House Armed Services Chairman Mike Rogers, Alabama Republican, told The Times he would like to secure “at least $100 billion” over two years.
He told his committee during their organizational meeting this week that lawmakers can find significant savings at the Pentagon, but the need to invest more in new technologies, readiness and service members “will be a very expensive endeavor.”
“Our adversaries are fielding new capabilities at astounding rates,” he said. “We can’t sit idly by as our adversaries outpace us.”
One of the adversaries Republicans are most concerned about is China, which has the second largest defense budget of any country, after the U.S.
In 2023, the U.S. spent $916 billion, or 3.4% of its gross domestic product, on military expenditures, while China spent $296 billion, or 1.7 of its GDP, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
Mr. Rogers said defense spending is at its lowest level as a percentage of GDP since the end of World War II and his goal is to get it back above 4%.
Senate Armed Services Chairman Roger Wicker, Mississippi Republican, has a slightly higher aspiration of growing defense spending to 5% of GDP.
He and Senate Budget Chairman Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, have discussed a goal of including $200 billion in defense funding in the reconciliation legislation.
Priorities for the funding include “missile defense, iron dome for America, ships both crude and non crude, aircraft and increased manpower,” Mr. Wicker said. “We would hope that we could spend most of the defense money early in the four-year to five-year time.”
Spending the money early reflects both a desire to catch up on deferred defense aspirations and a necessity to comply with budget reconciliation rules, which do not allow the legislation to add to the deficit outside of a 10-year budget window.
When Republicans talk about their priorities for reconciliation, it’s mostly senators who have placed significant emphasis on defense funding. That tracks with a recent pattern of Senate Republicans pushing for increases in the annual defense authorization and appropriations bills beyond what their House counterparts have proposed.
“There is a recognition on the Senate side, certainly among Republicans, but among a lot of my Democratic colleagues, that China means business. They’re not just screwing around,” Sen. John Kennedy, Louisiana Republican, told The Times. “Xi Jinping thinks that he’s going to be able to take over the world and lay the framework for that before he dies.”
Mr. Kennedy said China is building up its defense capabilities beyond traditional land and sea warfighting machines to include technologies that can weaponize cable and the fiber optic networks.
Although defense, outside of the southern border, is not at the top of House Republicans’ reconciliation talking points, even deficit hawks who are eying the process as a way to cut spending seem willing to give the Pentagon more money.
The House Freedom Caucus released a reconciliation framework on Thursday that called for $100-$200 billion funding “for defense modernization to ensure we beat China.”
But the conservative hardliners want that to come with a commitment that Republicans will use it to decrease Democrats’ leverage in the annual appropriations process and place limits on discretionary spending.
The Freedom Caucus still wants to cut some defense spending in the annual bills on “DEI and woke garbage,” Rep. Chip Roy, Texas Republican, said.
Pentagon funding cuts are not off the table as Mr. Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, helmed by tech-billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, looks at ways to reduce the federal bureaucracy and cut $2 trillion in federal spending.
Rep. Aaron Bean, Florida Republican and co-chair of the House DOGE caucus, told The Times he supports boosting spending on lethality while reducing funding to administrative overhead at the Pentagon.
While everybody wants to “buy upgraded equipment, keep our men and women safe, be the big guy on the block with our firepower,” the money has not been going to that, he said, pointing to the seven consecutive audits the agency has failed.
But Mr. Bean acknowledged lawmakers may not have time to tackle significant defense spending reforms in reconciliation.
“I want to hold everybody’s feet to the fire,” he said. “We need reductions and restructuring now, but I also recognize it’s a dangerous world. China is on the rise, and we need a military that’s lethal.”
Rep. Rich McCormick, Georgia Republican, likewise, wants to put more financial weight behind lethality.
He also wants guard rails on defense contracts in order to avoid long-term commitments of 10 or more years “so that we’re not worried about sustainment of an obsolete system.”
“As technologies develop rapidly, we want to be able to develop our contracting simultaneously so we have the most lethal weapons on the battlefield,” Mr. McCormick said.
• Alex Miller contributed to this story.
• Lindsey McPherson can be reached at lmcpherson@washingtontimes.com.