USA TODAY International Edition
House GOP is seeking separate defense bill
Conservatives want higher spending caps
WASHINGTON – Hard-line conservative House Republicans want to break out funding for the military from an overall funding bill so they can increase defense spending, and to get what they want they are willing to support a two-week budget extension that would avoid a government shutdown.
A separate bill would allow Republicans to increase defense spending by raising spending caps that were enacted under the Budget Control Act of 2011 to cut spending.
The government runs out of money at midnight Friday. Republican leaders in the House have released a shortterm continuing resolution bill that would keep the government operating at the current funding levels for the next two weeks while they negotiate a longer-term spending deal.
That plan met resistance from hard-line conservatives, who want a spending bill to run at least through the end of the year. They argue a threeweek bill would put Republicans in a better negotiating position.
Still, they may be willing to agree to the two-week bill if defense spending is dealt with separately in the next round of budget talks.
Rep. Mark Walker, R-N.C., who chairs the 150-plus member Republican Study Committee, had been pushing for a spending bill that would provide funding through the end of the year. After the Republican caucus met Tuesday, Walker said he could be “OK” with a bill that ended Dec. 22 if GOP leaders were willing to negotiate with conservatives on the next phase of a budget for the rest of the fiscal year.
Republican House conservatives and defense hawks are pushing for a separate bill to address defense spending because it would allow them to circumvent having to make a deal with Democrats on raising spending caps.
Many Republicans want to see the cap on defense spending raised. Democrats are demanding that the caps on non-defense and defense spending be raised equally.
Alabama Republican Rep. Bradley Byrne, a member of the House Armed Services Committee who has been negotiating with GOP leadership, said he was pushing for a separate bill because military funding was one of the areas of bipartisan consensus.
“Continuing resolutions are extremely bad for our military. We cannot plan for what we need to do with readiness,” he said.
Byrne said that he’d be willing to include other bipartisan pieces of legislation, such as disaster aid funding or an extension of the Children’s Health Insurance Program.
Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the former chair of the House Freedom Caucus, said he was supportive of a separate defense department funding bill.
In exchange for their vote on a shortterm funding bill, the Freedom Caucus demanded Republican leadership consider pushing the length of the measure at least through the end of the month.