Trump called for the massive surge in spending days after he ordered a U.S. military operation to capture Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and spirit him out of the country to face drug trafficking charges in the United States. U.S. forces continue to mass in the Caribbean Sea.

The 2026 military budget is set at $901 billion.

Trump in recent days has also called for taking over the Danish territory of Greenland for national security reasons and has suggested he’s open to carrying out military operations in Colombia. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has ominously warned that longtime adversary Cuba “is in trouble.”

“This will allow us to build the ‘Dream Military’ that we have long been entitled to and, more importantly, that will keep us SAFE and SECURE, regardless of foe,” Trump said in a posting on Truth Social announcing his proposal.

The military just received a large boost of some $175 billion in the GOP’s “big, beautiful bill” of tax breaks and spending reductions that Trump signed into law last year.

Insisting on more funding for the Pentagon is almost certain to run into resistance from Democrats who work to maintain parity between changes in defense and nondefense spending. But it’s also sure to draw objections from the GOP’s deficit hawks who have pushed back against larger military spending.

But Trump said he feels comfortable surging spending on the military because of increased revenue created by his administration through tariffs imposed on friends and foes around the globe since his return to office.

The U.S. government collected gross revenues of $288.5 billion last year from tariffs and other excise taxes, up from $98.3 billion in 2024, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center. That’s a meaningful increase in revenues from taxing imports. But it’s not enough to cover the various promises made by Trump, who has said the tariffs can also cover dividends to taxpayers, pay down the national debt and, now, cover increased spending on the military.

Meanwhile, Trump on Wednesday also threatened to cut off Pentagon purchases from Raytheon, one of the biggest U.S. defense contractors, if the company did not end the practice of stock buybacks and invest more profits into building out its weapons manufacturing capacity.

Trump in recent months has repeatedly complained that defense companies have been woefully behind on deliveries of critical weaponry, yet continue to mete out dividends and stock buybacks to investors and offering eye-popping salaries to top executives.

“Either Raytheon steps up, and starts investing in more upfront Investment like Plants and Equipment, or they will no longer be doing business with Department of War,” Trump said on social media. “Also, if Raytheon wants further business with the United States Government, under no circumstances will they be allowed to do any additional Stock Buybacks, where they have spent Tens of Billions of Dollars, until they are able to get their act together.”

The company is responsible for making some of the military’s most widely used and notable missiles, including the Tomahawk cruise missile, the shoulder-launched Javelin and Stinger missiles and the Sidewinder air-to-air missile.

Raytheon also owns Pratt & Whitney, a company that is responsible for manufacturing a host of jet engines that power aircraft for all the military branches, including the newest F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

On Wall Street, shares of defense contractors fell, with Northrop Grumman dropping 5.5%, Lockheed Martin declining 4.8% and RTX Corp., the parent company of Raytheon, slipping 2.5%.

Raytheon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

AP writers Josh Boak, Stephen Groves, Paul Harloff and Lisa Mascaro contributed reporting.

That would be the largest increase in nearly four decades for the U.S. government’s 2.1 million civil service employees.

“Federal employees are dedicated and talented professional public servants, often working demanding jobs,” the budget reads. “To continue to deliver for the American people in the 21st Century, the Federal Government must win the competition for highly-skilled talent.”

As is custom, each year the White House unveils the president’s funding requests for agencies and programs, offering a detailed look at priorities for the upcoming year to kick off the budget cycle. Pay raises for federal and military personnel are always highly anticipated, especially this year with inflation widening the double-digit wage gap between the public and private sector, and with agencies still reeling from staffing struggles exacerbated by the pandemic’s increased demand on public programs.

Biden’s proposed raise sets only a baseline, which is likely to change as Congress debates it in coming months. Federal unions and some lawmakers were hoping for more. They said an increase of 8.7%, as called for by the Democrats’ FAIR Act, would go further to make federal salaries competitive, especially for high-demand jobs in cybersecurity, health care and IT.

Last March, the federal budget proposal included an average pay increase of 4.6% for civilian federal workers, matching a planned military pay raise.

Other initiatives

The budget sets intentions to invest in the civilian workforce in other ways. To invite diverse applicants to federal jobs, the White House wants agencies to base hiring practices on skills rather than educational qualifications alone. It also directs agencies to consider beefing up paid internships.

To help with those goals, the budget supports expanding the Office of Personnel Management’s Hiring Experience Office. It provides $464 million, $78 million over the 2023 enacted amount, for OPM’s salaries and expenses account to ensure it can serve the government’s various HR needs.

The budget also provides resources to improve personnel vetting under the Trusted Workforce 2.0 plan, which is a policy framework coupled with technology to better background investigate job candidates and issue security clearances. In 2019, 2.9 million government employees and private sector contractors held a federal security clearance.

The Biden administrative also repeated its opposition against Schedule F and attacks on worker protections and unionization.

Improving customer experience

Improving the way the public interacts with agencies and the way agencies work with each other is another theme of this year’s budget proposal.

The budget requests an additional $200 million for the Technology Modernization Fund, which gives agencies a pool of money and resources to improve crumbling IT systems.

To ensure there are enough employees to deliver public services, the budget also wants to expand customer experience offices at nine high-volume departments, including the U.S. Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Homeland Security, the Interior, Labor, the Treasury, Veterans Affairs, the Small Business Administration and the Social Security Administration.

That includes hiring more than 120 full-time workers with customer experience skills and incorporating public feedback and data in a “Voice of the Customer”program at seven agencies.

Biden also proposes a pilot program at the Transportation Security Agency to embed customer service officials in the traveler screening process to solicit public feedback. Other pitches include self-help passport renewal at the Department of State and online tax services at the IRS. Shared platforms used by multiply agencies are also a way services can be streamlined and workflow and data silos can be consolidated.

With regard to the $600 billion the government spends a year on contracts, the Biden administration wants to steer its procurement dollars toward small disadvantaged businesses. The goal remains for 15% of federal contract dollars to go to these enterprises by 2025.

Finally, the budget also wants contract dollars to promote environmental initiatives in and out agencies. Biden set a goal for carbon pollution free federal electricity by 2030, zero-emission vehicle acquisitions by 2035 and net-zero emissions in federal buildings by 2045.

How pay raises work

By law, federal employees’ salaries are set at a level “equitable and comparable” with similar levels of work in the private sector, unless the president proposes alternative federal pay rates. It’s not clear based on the budget what the breakdown will be between the across-the-board raise and locality pay.

Normally, under the Federal Employees Pay Comparability Act of 1990, law requires a default adjustment each year if the president takes no action.

The president has authority to circumvent the automatic rate set by the Pay Agent, which includes the directors of the White House Office of Management and Budget and Office of Personnel Management, as well as the secretary of labor.

The administration issued only limited details, but spotlighted $9.1 billion in proposed investments for the Pentagon’s Pacific Deterrence Initiative, meant to bolster U.S. force posture in the region amid increasing tensions with China. The spending plan also includes $37.7 billion for the Defense Department to continue modernizing the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

“This budget cements our commitment to confronting global challenges and keeping America safe,” President Joe Biden wrote in an accompanying message to Congress. “It outlines crucial investments to out-compete China globally and to continue support for Ukraine in the face of unprovoked Russian aggression.”

The budget proposal pledges $6 billion to support Ukraine, though it’s unclear whether that money is for military or economic aid. That figure falls far short of the $113 billion Congress allocated for Kyiv via emergency supplemental spending last year.

Pentagon officials are scheduled to discuss the details of the department’s budget on Monday. The White House proposal also vowed to optimize and modernize U.S. naval shipbuilding, but did not detail any specific dollar amounts.

The document stated that the budget “continues the recapitalization of the Nation’s strategic ballistic missile submarine fleet while investing in the submarine industrial base” and makes “meaningful investments in improving the lethality and survivability of the fleet, particularly improving undersea superiority.” That includes “the recapitalization and optimization of the four public Naval Shipyards to meet future submarine and carrier maintenance requirements.”

According to the administration, the budget also “invests in key technologies and sectors of the U.S. industrial base such as microelectronics, submarine construction, munitions production, and biomanufacturing.”

Funds allocated to the Energy Department will support “the strong technical and engineering foundation” for the trilateral AUKUS agreement between the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom, which the leaders of the three countries are expected to unveil in more detail in San Diego on Monday.

Congressional headwinds

The defense spending proposal is expected to face harsh criticism from Republicans lawmakers, both for being too small to meet global threats and too large to meet deficit reduction goals.

The release of the White House budget draft kicks off the public debate over spending for the next fiscal year, which starts Oct. 1, and negotiating a full-year budget plan is expected to take months. Already, House Republican leaders have simultaneously promised to trim federal spending while boosting funding for national security needs, including the military.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., for his part, has vowed to cut at least $130 billion in non-discretionary spending, raising questions as to how the Republican-controlled House can accommodate a defense budget increase.

Some defense hawks, like House Defense Appropriations subcommittee Chairman Ken Calvert, R-Calif., have started looking at ways to squeeze savings out of the Pentagon. Calvert, for instance, has proposed trimming the Defense Department’s civilian workforce.

However, the Biden administration said its budget will “strengthen” the Pentagon’s “civilian workforce as a critical contributor to the nation’s security.”

The Senate’s No. 2 Democrat, Sen. Dick Durbin, of Illinois, on Wednesday, before the White House released the proposal, vented that House Republicans have not offered their own budget plan.

Republicans “want to cut spending, but they want to increase defense spending, and many of us have asked for more money for Ukraine, and we certainly are sensitive to the fact that we have to replenish our own supplies in the process,” Durbin said.

“They keep talking in generalities,” he added. “It’s time to establish what they can pass in the House of Representatives.”

Speaking Wednesday before the budget release, the Senate Armed Services Committee’s top Republican, Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, said any openness to cut defense spending among Republicans is out of step with the majority of the party and suggested McCarthy would buck those views.

“He’s going to make the right decision for the future of our country, and it goes without saying you can’t accommodate two differing positions at one time,” Wicker said. “We are ready to defend our national security interests, and I am getting every signal that this budget will be inadequate and will need to be plussed up.”

The Congressional Budget Office based its findings on preliminary Treasury reports.

The worsening deficit picture comes as Congress digs into its pockets for tens of billions of dollars more for hurricane relief. Lawmakers are also working toward a round of tax cuts that could add $1.5 trillion in debt over 10 years on top of already grim projections.

Washington isn’t focusing much on the deficit these days, following the lead of President Donald Trump. The president has ruled out cuts to big benefit programs that drive the deficit’s growth, and Congress has rejected most of Trump’s other spending cuts.

The national debt is $20 trillion and CBO projects it would grow to about $30 trillion within 10 years. Many analysts, including CBO, worry that the nation’s deficit path is unsustainable and will harm the economy by sopping up investment and pushing up interest rates.

Republicans controlling Congress are working on companion nonbinding budget plans that promise sharp spending cuts and shrinking deficits, but they aren’t likely to actually try to carry out the cuts. Instead, the GOP budgets are aimed chiefly at easing the way for follow-up legislation to overhaul the tax code.

Treasury will issue the official deficit figures in a week or two.

Republicans controlling the chamber have no plans to actually implement those cuts, however.

Instead, the budget plan’s chief purpose is to set the stage for a tax overhaul plan that is the party’s top political priority as well as a longtime policy dream of key leaders like Speaker Paul Ryan.

The plan, passed by a nearly party-line 219-206 vote, calls for more than $5 trillion in spending cuts over the coming decade, promising to slash Medicaid by about $1 trillion over the next 10 years, repeal the “Obamacare” health law, and force huge cuts to domestic programs funded each year by Congress. Eighteen Republicans opposed the measure.

“It’s a budget that will help grow our economy, and it’s a budget that will help rein in our debt,” said Ryan, R-Wis. “It reforms Medicaid. It strengthens Medicare.”

But Republicans are not actually planning to impose any of those cuts with follow-up legislation that would be required under Washington’s Byzantine budget rules. Instead, those GOP proposals for spending cuts are limited to nonbinding promises, and even a token 10-year, $200 billion spending cut package demanded by tea party House Republicans appears likely to be scrapped in upcoming talks with the Senate.

Instead, the motivating force behind the budget measures is the Republicans’ party-defining drive to cut corporate and individual tax rates and rid the tax code of loopholes. They promise this tax “reform” measure will put the economy in overdrive, driving economic growth to the 3 percent range, and adding a surge of new tax revenues that would help bring the budget toward balance.

Passing the measure in the House and Senate would provide key procedural help for the tax measure because it sets the stage for follow-on legislation that can’t be filibustered by Senate Democrats. Republicans used the same so-called reconciliation procedure in their failed attempt to kill “Obamacare,” including its tax surcharges on wealthy people.

“Through reconciliation, our budget specifically paves the way for pro-growth tax reform that will reduce taxes for middle class Americans and free up American businesses to grow and hire,” said Rep. Diane Black, R-Tenn., who chairs the House Budget Committee.

Democrats blasted the sweeping spending cuts proposed by Republicans — more than $5 trillion over 10 years in the House plan and somewhat less in the Senate GOP measure — as an assault on middle-class families and the poor.

“Is it a statement of our values to take a half-trillion dollars out of Medicare to give a tax cut to the wealthiest people in our country?” said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

“The Republican budget … is a shockingly extreme document that gives to the rich and takes from everyone else,” said Kentucky Rep. John Yarmuth, D-Ky. “It calls for more than $5 trillion in spending cuts that threaten our economic progress and our national security, and it willfully ignores the needs and priorities of the American people.”

The House vote comes as the Senate Budget Committee is considering a companion plan that differs in key details — but would still result in deficits exceeding $400 billion after 10 years — and is set for a vote Thursday afternoon.

Both the House and Senate plans rely on rosy estimates of economic growth and illusory spending cuts to promise to wrestle the budget deficit under control.

The House measure also assumes that the upcoming tax bill won’t add to the deficit; the Senate version, however, would permit the measure to add $1.5 trillion to the $20 trillion-plus national debt over the coming 10 years. The final version is likely to stick closely to the Senate measure.

The real-world trajectory of Washington, however, is for higher deficits as Republicans focus on tax cuts, a huge hike in the defense budget, and a growing disaster aid tally that is about to hit $45 billion.

“The train’s left the station, and if you’re a budget hawk, you were left at the station,” said Rep. Mark Sanford, R-S.C.

The vote was 211-198 for the massive measure that wrapped the 12 annual spending bills into one in advance of the end of the budget year on Sept. 30. Even though the Senate still must act, the government will keep operating through Dec. 8, thanks to legislation Congress passed last week and sent to Trump.

House members spent the past two weeks debating the measure’s $500 billion for domestic agencies. GOP leaders then merged that domestic spending package with an earlier House measure that would give record budget increases to the Pentagon and provide a $1.6 billion down payment for Trump’s wall along the U.S.-Mexico border that he repeatedly has insisted Mexico would finance.

“It does everything from strengthening our national defense and veterans’ programs to cracking down on illegal immigration to protecting life to cutting abusive Washington agencies like the IRS and the EPA,” said the No. 2 House Republican, Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California.

At issue are the spending bills passed by Congress each year to fund day-to-day operations of federal agencies. Trump, following the lead of budget director Mick Mulvaney, a former tea party congressman, pushed for a sweeping increase for the Pentagon and commensurate cuts of more than $50 billion from domestic agencies and foreign aid.

House Republicans have responded by adding even more spending on defense, but have significantly scaled back Trump’s cuts to domestic programs like community development grants and medical research.

Trump has taken a low-profile on budget issues other than the wall, however, and his administration has done little to fight for his spending cuts since they were unveiled.

The House measure adds almost $9 billion to Trump’s funding request for medical research at the National Institutes of Health, rather than accepting sharp cuts recommended by Trump. It keeps as-is a $269 million subsidy for money-losing routes to rural airports that Trump had targeted. And it gives modest increases to GOP favorites such as law enforcement agencies and NASA.

But House Republicans voted to slash government accounts on studying climate change, eliminate Title X family planning funds, and sharply cut foreign aid accounts, though not as drastically as Trump proposed. A transportation grant program started by former President Barack Obama would be eliminated, as would hiring grants for local police departments.

The limits imposed by a budget agreement threaten the measure’s sweeping Pentagon increases, which total about $60 billion above current levels and almost $30 billion higher than Trump’s budget. That would evaporate next year unless there’s a bipartisan agreement to raise them. A two-year agreement that eased those spending limits expires in September.

The legislation is laced with conservative provisions reversing Obama-era regulations, blocking implementation of the Affordable Care Act and defunding Planned Parenthood. But most such measures will be dropped — as in previous years — during subsequent negotiations with Democrats.

Passage of the legislation marks the first time since 2009 that the House has backed all of the appropriations bills in one fashion or the other by the end of the budget year. The progress was possible in part because House GOP leaders maneuvered to keep Democrats from forcing controversial votes on issues such as immigration.

Trump had dinner Tuesday with a group of Republican and Democratic senators to talk taxes, after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and GOP members of the Budget Committee met with two top Trump administration officials to make progress on forging the budget plan, which is required to stave off potential Democratic blocking tactics and pass the subsequent tax bill with just GOP votes.

The as-yet-undrafted bill to overhaul the tax code is the top priority for Trump and Republicans after the collapse of their effort to dismantle Barack Obama’s health care law. Trump’s top economic adviser, Gary Cohn, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin met with McConnell, R-Ky., and budget panel members.

“From my standpoint, let’s set ourselves up for success on tax reform,” Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., a member of the committee, said before the meeting.

The meeting ended in late afternoon without specific proposed numbers for the size of the budget coming forward. Not wanting to show disappointment, participants stressed that it was intended to be preliminary.

Finance Committee Chairman Sen. Orrin Hatch said afterward that the group, which discussed the broad outlines of the deficit trade-off for a new tax bill, had not reached an agreement. Hatch, R-Utah, said he expected more information to come soon.

Mnuchin signaled ahead of the meeting that the administration would be open to changes sought by lawmakers to improve the chances for passage of a tax overhaul this year. In an interview with CNBC, Mnuchin also said the administration would “absolutely” consider making tax cuts retroactive to the start of this year if overhaul legislation didn’t pass until 2018.

In addition, the administration would consider including an infrastructure spending bill as part of the tax legislation, Mnuchin said.

“This is a pass-fail exercise,” he said, indicating that the critical goal was to enact legislation. “Passing tax reform, which hasn’t been done in 31 years, that is a win,” he said.

Capitol Hill Republicans have promised that the tax rewrite will be “revenue neutral” and not add to the nation’s $20 trillion-plus debt, but they are in fact counting on budget maneuvers to find hundreds of billions of dollars to help maximize cuts to corporate and individual tax rates. For starters, they are going to assume the tax legislation will mean higher economic growth and greater future tax revenues.

Underscoring the president’s desire for tax legislation, Trump hosted a bipartisan group of senators for dinner at the White House, including a trio of moderate Democrats from states Trump won last November and whose votes he’d like to have on a tax bill.

Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Joe Donnelly of Indiana were joined at dinner by Republican Sens. John Thune of North Dakota, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania and Hatch, the White House said.

“I had a productive conversation with @POTUS @realDonaldTrump about ways we can work together in a bipartisan manner on tax reform,” Manchin tweeted after the dinner, along with a photo of himself and the president. He said in a statement that he would “continue to fight for a simpler tax code that lowers rates for West Virginians,” but said that must be done “without adding to our staggering debt.”

Heitkamp said she welcomed any chance “to talk with the president about issues important to North Dakota” and was looking forward to reviewing Trump’s plans in more detail.

“It’s encouraging that this meeting included Republican and Democratic senators, as I’ve long said I want to work with those on both sides of the aisle on a comprehensive, permanent tax reform plan that works for North Dakota workers and retirees and helps grow the economy, and I hope these bipartisan discussions continue,” she said.

Manchin, Heitkamp and Donnelly are the only Democratic senators who did not sign a letter addressed to Republican leaders and Trump that said the Democratic caucus would not support a tax overhaul that cuts taxes for the “top 1 percent” or adds to the government’s $20 trillion debt.

The White House, meanwhile, said the president “looks forward to continuing to work with members from both parties to grow the economy, provide tax relief and look for real solutions.”

“When members of different parties sit down together for friendly conversation about the legislative agenda, after not doing so for 8 years, it certainly is progress,” Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said.

House action has been held up by a battle between moderates and conservatives over whether to pair spending cuts with the filibuster-proof tax measure. Senate action has been on hold while the House struggles.

An impasse could doom the tax overhaul effort.

GOP aides say the Senate panel is also likely to reject a House plan to link $200 billion in spending cuts to the tax legislation — a key demand of House conservatives.

The momentum toward deficit-financed tax cuts runs counter to the longtime promises from top Capitol Hill leaders that this year’s effort to rewrite the tax code wouldn’t add to the government’s $20 trillion-plus national debt. And it sets up a scenario in which many of the promised new tax rates would expire after 10 years. That’s because of the Senate’s arcane rules.

On the budget panel, Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., is hoping to limit the deficit cost of the tax effort, while Toomey is on the other end of the spectrum favoring more robust deficit-financed tax cuts. GOP leaders have asked them to try to craft an agreement among the 12 budget panel Republicans. Any Republican defection on the budget plan would deadlock the narrowly divided committee.

Associated Press writer Darlene Superville contributed to this report.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and GOP members of the Budget Committee are meeting Tuesday with two top Trump administration officials to plot breaking the budget stalemate.

Lack of a budget plan for the 2018 fiscal year starting Oct. 1 is a roadblock to the must-do legislation overhauling the tax system that Republicans and President Donald Trump have made their highest priority. Trump’s top economic adviser, Gary Cohn, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin are meeting with McConnell and budget panel members.

Underscoring the president’s desire for tax legislation, Trump was hosting a bipartisan group of senators for dinner at the White House on Tuesday, including a trio of moderate Democrats from states Trump won last November and whose votes he’d like to have on a tax bill.

Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Joe Donnelly of Indiana are to be joined at dinner by Republican Sens. John Thune of North Dakota, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania and Orrin Hatch of Utah, the White House said.

Manchin, Heitkamp and Donnelly are the only Democratic senators who did not sign a letter addressed to Republican leaders and Trump that said the Democratic caucus would not support a tax overhaul that cuts taxes for the “top 1 percent” or adds to the government’s $20 trillion debt.

Heitkamp traveled with Trump aboard Air Force One to an event in her home state last week where he spoke broadly about the tax plan. Trump pitched the senator on the overhaul, calling her a “good woman.” Heitkamp said after the event that she needs to see the details first.

Under Washington’s complicated ways, passing a congressional budget blueprint is the only way to set in motion a special process for rewriting the tax code. If Congress can pass a budget, Republicans controlling the Senate don’t need to worry about a Democratic filibuster blocking any tax bill.

House action has been held up by a battle between moderates and conservatives over whether to pair spending cuts with the filibuster-proof tax measure. Senate action has been on hold while the House struggles.

An impasse could doom the tax overhaul effort.

On the budget panel, Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., is hoping to limit the deficit cost of the tax effort, while Toomey is on the other end of the spectrum favoring more robust deficit-financed tax cuts. GOP leaders have asked them to try to craft an agreement among the 12 budget panel Republicans. Any Republican defection on the budget plan would deadlock the narrowly divided committee.

“I’m a fiscal hawk, OK? I believe in pro-growth tax reform and I believe that’s a mechanism toward lowering deficits,” Corker said Monday. “But I’m also someone who wants to be realistic about all of this, and not let this just be party time that takes us no place but massive deficits down the road.”

Revamping the nation’s tax system and providing relief for the middle class is a Republican mission following the collapse of efforts to repeal and replace former President Barack Obama’s health care law. Trump has made it a pillar of his push for economic growth.

Associated Press writers Andrew Taylor and Darlene Superville contributed to this report.

The law is a first installment in replenishing depleted federal emergency coffers. Trump signed it Friday as Hurricane Irma approached Florida and as Texas picks up the pieces after the devastation of Harvey. All 90 votes in opposition were cast by Republicans, some of whom hissed and booed administration officials who went to Capitol Hill to defend the package.

Conservative Republicans were upset that Trump cut the disaster-and-debt deal with Democratic leaders with no offsetting budget cuts.

“You can’t just keep borrowing money,” said GOP Rep. Jeff Duncan of South Carolina. “We’re going to be $22 trillion in debt.”

The aid measure, which passed the House on a vote of 316-90, was the first injection of emergency money that could rival or exceed the $110 billion federal response after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, though future aid packages may be more difficult to pass. The legislation also finances the government through Dec. 8.

In a closed-door meeting before the vote, more than a dozen Republicans stood up and complained about Trump cutting a deal with Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi instead of GOP leaders trying to deliver on the president’s agenda.

Budget chief Mick Mulvaney, a former tea party congressman from South Carolina who took a hard line against debt increases during his House tenure, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin faced a rough time in pleading for votes.

Mnuchin elicited hisses when he told the meeting of House Republicans “vote for the debt ceiling for me,” said Rep. Mark Walker, R-N.C.

Republicans were in disbelief after Mnuchin argued that the debt ceiling shouldn’t be a political issue in the future, said Rep. Mark Sanford, R-S.C.

Rep. Ryan Costello, R-Pa., described a surreal scene with Mnuchin, a former Democratic donor, and Mulvaney, who almost certainly would have opposed the very measure he was sent to pitch, pressing Republicans to rally around the legislation.

“It’s kind of like ‘Where am I? What’s going on here?’” Costello said. “If it wasn’t so serious it kind of would have been funny.”

Mulvaney was booed when he stepped to the microphone, though lawmakers said it was good-natured. He defended the deal and Trump.

“It was absolutely the right thing to do,” Mulvaney told reporters after the meeting. “The president is a results-driven person, and right now he wants to see results on Hurricane Harvey, Hurricane Irma and tax reform. He saw an opportunity to work with Democrats on this particular issue at this particular time.”

But Mulvaney further upset Republicans when he wouldn’t promise spending cuts as part of a future debt limit vote.

Trump on Wednesday had cut a deal with Sen. Schumer and Rep. Pelosi to increase the debt limit for three months, rather than the long-term approach preferred by the GOP leaders that would have resolved the issue through next year’s midterms.

Conservatives disliked both options. Voting on the debt limit is politically toxic for Republicans, and the deal will make the GOP vote twice before next year’s midterm elections.

Fiscal conservatives have clamored for deep cuts in spending in exchange for any increase in the government’s borrowing authority. The storm relief measure had widespread support, but the linkage with the debt ceiling left many Republicans frustrated.

“Are we doing anything on fiscal sanity? No,” said tea party Rep. Dave Brat, R-Va. “And so Mick (Mulvaney) came over today, the treasury secretary came over today, and we said, ‘Do you have a plan for fiscal sanity going forward?’ No. Crickets. So that’s the frustration.”

Democratic votes are invariably needed to increase the debt limit — and avert a potential market-quaking default on government obligations — and Schumer and Pelosi successfully pressed to waive the debt limit through Dec. 8. Democrats are cautious about working with Trump, but hold out hope for legislation on the budget, health care, and shielding young immigrants brought to this country illegally from deportation.

Moderate GOP Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., said he’s been encouraging Trump to find ways to work with Democrats. King attended a meeting in the White House on Thursday with lawmakers when the president asked him “how did I feel the bipartisan deal was going. Did I think it was good?” I said, ”‘Absolutely, we need more of it.’ I said, ‘You and Chuck. The two of you in the room. We can make some good deals.’”

Associated Press writers Richard Lardner and Kevin Freking contributed to this report.