Senate Republicans ignored Trump’s request to increase the Defense Budget to an astronomical $750 billion dollars, setting a still too high overall budget budget of $648 billion.
By BY NIV ELIS
In his budget proposal, Trump called for increasing overall defense spending to $750 billion, but did so by adding nearly $100 billion to OCO. The gimmick allowed Trump to technically stick to major decreases in both defense and non-defense spending that are due to go into effect in 2020 by law.
The Senate's proposal, which will be marked up in committee next week, also stuck to the drastic cuts mandated by law, putting defense at $576 billion and non-defense at $543 billion. which together amount to a $125 billion drop from current spending caps.
The Senate resolution put OCO funding at $67 billion, assuming it was all allocated for defense, where Trump’s plan raised OCO spending from $69 billion this year to $165 billion.
Combined, that would put defense spending at $643 billion, some $73 billion below the current level of $716 billion, and well below the president's request. Non-defense would drop by $54 billion from current levels, assuming none of the new OCO funding were allocated for non-defense spending.
But the Senate resolution also includes language that would allow defense spending to rise to $750 billion, provided there were offsets to the extra spending. That could come in the form of cutting mandatory spending, contemplating other non-defense cuts, or finding new revenues.
The resolution would also instruct congressional authorizing committees to find $94 billion of mandatory cuts, which Enzi said were linked to "reasonable reforms."
This is the Senate’s opening position. Lets see how Pelosi and House Democrats respond.