The defense budget request will include a $9 billion emergency fund, Defense News reported, citing sources familiar with the budget. At least $2 billion of that would be used for rebuilding and repairing infrastructure hit by storms, said its sources, who added that number may go up.
President Trump is demanding – via his national emergency declaration – that DOD divert military construction funding to build a border wall.
DOD has said it will ask Congress to re-fund any milcon projects delayed to prioritize the wall, but many on both sides of the aisle see that as a congressional work-around.
“We’re given the authority to appropriate, and the President is saying, essentially: ‘I don’t like what you’ve appropriated. I’ll just take the money and move it elsewhere,’” Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said, according to Defense News. “We’re setting up for a constitutional issue of significant importance.”
The Senate is expected this week to join the House in passing a resolution that would nullify the emergency declaration, but there is unlikely enough support to override a promised veto.
School construction last month at Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala. U.S. Air Force photo by William Birchfield
Post-Leadership, McConnell Plans to Push for More Defense Funding
When Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell steps down from his Senate leadership role after the November elections, he’ll have at least two more years in the Senate. Now he’s signaled one of his priorities as a rank-and-file Senator is to increase defense funding,...
