Panel advances defense budget despite missing details from White House
The appropriations bill topline essentially matches spending levels from the current fiscal year, leaving defense programs without any increase for inflation or cost-of-living hikes in the base budget plan.
However, the funding plan is designed to run alongside congressional reconciliation plans, which would add another $150 billion in funds for the Defense Department. Republicans assert the combination could bring total military spending for next year to nearly $1 trillion, even though those funds would be spread out over four years.
'[This bill] provides the resources necessary for maintaining American military superiority, leveraging our technological innovation into tactical advantages on the battlefield, and supporting the Defense Department's most valuable assets: our warfighters,'said Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Calif., chairman of the House Appropriations Committee's defense panel.
Trump requests $892.6 billion base defense budget, a real-terms cut
'Together, with the significant defense funding advancing through Congress as part of the reconciliation process, the FY26 bill … [represents] a historic commitment to strengthening and modernizing America's national defense.'
The measure calls for a 3.8% pay raise, eliminates 45,000 civilian defense jobs and allocates $13 billion to start the White House's proposed Golden Dome missile defense program.
But Democratic lawmakers said the legislation — which could advance to the full chamber for approval later this month — still has too many gaps to support because the White House is months behind in its promise to provide a detailed budget to Congress.
'We have zip, nada, no idea where we are going,' Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee, told Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth during a hearing before Tuesday's subcommittee vote.
'Give us the details … My hope was that we could get to it before a markup.'
Hegseth said those details will be sent to lawmakers soon, but he also supported the committee moving ahead with the broad outlines of the defense spending plan.
'[The president's plan] realigns the military to the historic strength that began in President Donald Trump's first term and makes generational investments in the president's priorities including developing the Golden Dome, sealing the Southwest Border, investing in the F-47, revitalizing our shipbuilding industry,' he told lawmakers.
The 3.8% pay raise matches the federal formula for the recommended annual military pay raise, a calculation that Congress has followed most years for the last two decades.
The formula is based on changes in wages for the civilian workforce and is designed to ensure that military paychecks don't lag behind compensation for other industries. Military pay has increased by at least 2% every year since 2017, and troops have seen a pay increase annually since the 1970s.
Last January, that military pay raise was 4.5%. In addition, Congress approved a targeted pay raise for junior enlisted service members that went into effect on April 1, raising their paychecks by up to 10%.
For junior enlisted troops, a 3.8% raise in 2026 would mean about $1,200 more in take-home pay. For senior enlisted and junior officers, the raise would add about $2,500 more to their annual paychecks. An O-4 with 12 years of service would see almost $4,300 more over 2025 pay levels.
The pay increase will cost more than $6 billion next year, taking up nearly all of the planned increase in the appropriations bill's personnel account hike. As a result, other procurement accounts are being held flat or losing funding, potentially cutting other equipment and modernization priorities.
The appropriations bill also projects $662 million in savings from 'slowing permanent change of station moves,' although specifics of that plan were not released by the committee.
Democrats also objected to policy provisions in the bill blocking service personnel from traveling across state lines to seek reproductive health care, including abortion services. During former President Joe Biden's term in office, the department helped cover the cost of such trips, calling it a force readiness issue.
Senate appropriators — both Republicans and Democrats — on Tuesday raised concerns about missing details from the White House's defense budget plan. That chamber is expected to unveil its appropriations draft of the military budget for next year in the next few weeks.
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