Bloomberg Congress Tracker - Republicans Question Offsets for Increased War Funds

News Article

By Roxana Tiron and Erik Wasson

Several Republicans concerned about how to ensure a proposed increase in war funding are negotiating with Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price on possible offsets.

Price's draft legislative text seeks to offset about $20 billion of the $94 billion proposed in fiscal 2016 for the overseas contingency operations fund with cuts elsewhere.

The Georgia Republican told reporters he's working with Armed Services Committee members to secure their support by identifying specific offsets. "What we are demonstrating to them is that our budget actually provides more resources than the president's budget does, in base defense spending and global war on terror spending," he said.

Some Republicans on the Armed Services Committee have taken issue with the additional $20 billion in war funding because it's contingent on a deficit-neutral reserve fund that doesn't specify how it's paid for. They are worried that offsets won't materialize later and the extra spending will be taken away.

If they can't reach agreement with Price, the Republicans could oppose the budget on the House floor and jeopardize its adoption.

"I do not want a budget that uses budgetary tricks to appear strong on national defense, but is actually leaving our warfighters $20 billion short," Doug Lamborn, a member of the Armed Services Committee, said in a statement.

"I hope that Chairman Price reconsiders and finds a way to make all of the OCO funding real dollars," the Colorado lawmaker said.

Another Armed Services member, Vicky Hartzler of Missouri, said in an interview that she would prefer to see all of the OCO without offsets.

Committee member Trent Franks said negotiations continue over making the money "real" rather than contingent on future search for offsets. If that doesn't happen, "then we fall short of what we need to protect our fighting men and women," Franks, an Arizona Republican, told reporters.

Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers of Kentucky defended the funding increase. He said it's "the only way to go at the moment."

While they didn't oppose a possible increase in OCO, military service leaders told a House Armed Services Committee hearing today that it could bring some challenges. Among them: the difficulty in eventually moving "unsupportable funds" from war funding accounts into the Pentagon base budget, according to Army Secretary John McHugh.

McHugh along with Navy Secretary Ray Mabus and Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James said it would be better and more predictable to have more money in the base Pentagon budget than in OCO.

SPENDING CAPS: The House Republican budget blueprint, scheduled to be marked up tomorrow, would leave spending caps in place for national security programs in fiscal 2016, then propose increasing defense funding for the following nine years.

For the next fiscal year, the draft budget resolution would get around the caps set in the 2011 Budget Control Act, Public Law 112-25, by increasing the overseas contingency operations, or OCO, account to $94 billion.

The OCO account gives budget-writers flexibility because it isn't subject to spending caps. Congress allocated $73 billion for the overseas contingencies this year while President Barack Obama requested $58 billion in war funds for fiscal 2016, with $51 billion going to Pentagon and the rest to the State Department.