Is Trump’s $1.5 trillion Pentagon budget plan going down the tubes? On July 15, the House Budget Committee released its version of the FY2027 budget resolution, a bill which is forecast to hit a buzz saw in the Senate. The House bill provides space for a budget reconciliation bill of $95 billion, including only $60 billion for defense, a far cry from the $350 billion the White House is demanding. That $350 billion was to have come on top of a $1.15 trillion budget request to be funded through the normal legislative process, reported Air and Space Force Magazine. Separately, it notes the White House has also asked Congress to approve a $67 billion supplemental funding bill, submitted on June 24, to pay for the war with Iran, along with a few additional needs.
In the Senate, Republicans reportedly are split between defense hawks who want more money for the Pentagon and fiscal hawks who want any additional spending to be paid for by taking it from other programs. Then there are the appropriators who say that overuse of the budget reconciliation process–which Republicans have already used twice in the current Congress to avoid Democratic opposition–would further undermine their authority. Another monkey wrench in the process was the unexpected death of Sen. Lindsey Graham on July 11 who, as chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, was working closely with both his House counterpart and the White House on a much larger reconciliation package.
The bill also includes $10 billion for election security, which Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) has vowed to stop using every means at his disposal, reported The Hill . Tillis argued that a tangle of agencies would have to rush to implement new rules before the Nov. 3 general election and called talk of adding elements of the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE America) Act—Trump’s top legislative priority—to any budget package a “charade” and “distraction.”
