Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, right, greets Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., left, before a committee meeting on Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2025. (Eric Kayne/Stars and Stripes)
WASHINGTON — Congressional Republicans are pushing for at least $100 billion in additional defense spending during the next decade to boost the military’s budget and advance President Donald Trump’s agenda.
The two chambers are working on two different budget resolutions that will direct the House Armed Services Committee and the Senate Armed Services Committee to develop legislation detailing how the money will be spent.
The Senate Budget Committee’s resolution calls for a $150 billion increase in defense spending to expand the Navy, strengthen the defense industrial base, build an integrated air and missile defense system and continue the modernization of strategic nuclear forces. About $20 billion would also increase funding for the Coast Guard.
The House Budget Committee’s fiscal blueprint, released Wednesday, proposes a $100 billion spending cap for the military. The committee will debate the measure Thursday, and the Senate Budget Committee began its deliberations Wednesday.
Both resolutions are part of a Republican effort to enact Trump’s agenda, which includes tax cuts, securing the U.S. border with Mexico, increasing American energy independence and bolstering the military. The House aims to tackle all those priorities in one large bill, and the Senate wants to move the tax cuts into separate legislation.
The chairmen of the Senate and House Armed Services committees have stressed the need to raise defense spending to 5% of the U.S. gross domestic product to meet security challenges from China, Russia, North Korea and Iran.
“We must make the investments necessary to deter, and if necessary, defeat this new axis of aggressors,” Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., the chairman of the House panel, said Wednesday. “Yet today, U.S. defense spending as a percentage of GDP is at its lowest level since before World War II. This is not enough to deter our enemies.”
The annual defense budget, totaling more than $800 billion, is now at about 3% of GDP, according to a report issued last year by Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., the chairman of the Senate panel.
“The president campaigned on a ‘peace through strength’ agenda,” Wicker said after recently meeting with Trump. “I am hopeful that the reconciliation process will allow Congress to help him meet that goal. We cannot rebuild the military on the cheap, and we should not cut corners when building the tools our service members need.”
The Senate Budget Committee meets Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2025, to discuss increasing defense spending. (Eric Kayne/Stars and Stripes)
The reconciliation process begins with the budget resolutions that the House and Senate are now considering. If the resolutions are approved, Republicans would be able to bypass the 60-vote threshold typically required in the Senate and pass their budget priorities with a simple majority vote.
Democrats on Wednesday decried the process and said the Republican proposals will drive up the national debt while cutting programs for families and giving tax cuts mainly to the rich.
The House’s overall budget plan provides for a $4 trillion increase in the debt limit and aims to cut spending by $2 trillion in the next 10 years. The Senate’s plan will require an $85.5 billion reduction in annual spending on programs not related to defense, border security and domestic energy production.
Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, asked why Republicans were using the budget reconciliation process to raise defense spending when lawmakers in both parties have been willing to pass supplemental funding for the Pentagon in recent years.
“You don’t need to use reconciliation to find spending on defense,” Kaine said. “We do it all the time in a bipartisan way.”
But Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, said Congress needed to “break the cycle” of raising defense spending in conjunction with also boosting funding for non-defense programs, as insisted on by Democrats.
“We want to increase defense spending because we believe we have threats from China, Russia, Iran, terrorist levels that are really unprecedented. We want to rebuild our military as quickly as we can,” he said. “We can actually help the Defense Department that is underfunded.”
