{"id":32738,"date":"2018-03-06T16:19:23","date_gmt":"2018-03-06T16:19:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/federaltimes\/uncategorized\/2018\/03\/06\/republicans-jeopardizing-pentagon-budget-boost-smith\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T23:59:35","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T23:59:35","slug":"republicans-jeopardizing-pentagon-budget-boost-smith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/federaltimes\/congress\/budget\/2018\/03\/06\/republicans-jeopardizing-pentagon-budget-boost-smith\/","title":{"rendered":"Republicans jeopardizing Pentagon budget boost, lawmaker says"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 The Pentagon\u2019s two-year budget boost may unravel next year if Republicans fiddle with the domestic side of the deal, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee warned Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou have the second year of the budget agreement, and that\u2019s great, but that, too, is uncertain because there are certain Republicans who have already started to make noise that nondefense discretionary [spending can be lowered],\u201d said HASC ranking member Adam Smith, D-Wash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think that\u2019s the way Democrats looked at it during the course of negotiations, so that could cause uncertainty as well,\u201d Smith said at the McAleese and Associates\/Credit Suisse defense conference in Washington.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After months of wrangling on Capitol Hill, the budget deal signed by President Donald Trump last month increases discretionary spending caps over the next two years by $165 billion for defense and $131 billion for nondefense. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Smith offered a counterpoint to a call for a 355-ship Navy<\/a> from Senate Armed Services Seapower Subcommittee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss. Building up the Navy, Wicker said, would address the causes of two fatal ship collisions last year and align with the new National Defense Strategy\u2019s focus on great powers Russia and China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe budget request <\/a>was good, but it wasn\u2019t good enough,\u201d Wicker said. \u201cThe Navy\u2019s 2019 budget request was for $22 billion for 10 ships. We want them to come up with $26 billion for 14 new ships.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Smith, a vocal critic of congressional budgeting dysfunction, argued the Republican-led tax cuts were inconsistent with increased defense spending. He called for a means-based defense strategy and argued projections for a 355-ship Navy are \u201cpure fantasy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s simply a number thrown out there,\u201d Smith said. \u201cI think they\u2019ve said they hope to achieve a 355-ship Navy by 2050. It\u2019s so far off in the distance. We can barely predict what\u2019s going to happen two months from now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Navy performed a 2016 Force Structure assessment that explains the requirement for a 355-ship fleet, but a recent Center for Strategic and International Studies report has raised doubts about whether the Navy can afford it, given that it struggles to control costs for its current 277-ship fleet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wicker and Smith did seem to agree Congress should stretch 2018 appropriations for the Pentagon<\/a> in some way to compensate for the appropriations likely to come halfway into the fiscal year. Under existing rules, the Pentagon must spend or lose one-year operations and maintenance dollars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wicker and SASC Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., sponsored legislation that would address the systemic causes of the collisions and let the Navy spend O&M money as late as in the fiscal year after it\u2019s appropriated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asked how he would grapple with potential opposition from appropriators, Wicker argued the collapse of regular order necessitates his remedy. \u201cI think we should try on this one area that \u2026 has been problematic,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Military leaders at the conference said they would welcome leeway to spread money. Gen. Glenn Walters, the Marine Corps\u2019 No. 2 uniformed officer, said stopgap spending bills have delayed the maintenance on ships, which in turn delays training.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe problem with one-year money is if you only get it for six months, it\u2019s really difficult because what you can\u2019t recover is time,\u201d Walters said. \u201cTime behind me is less training and less-ready forces.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\t