GOP defense-spending fight highlights balanced budget challenges

Divisions among Republicans over how best to fund the Pentagon may highlight some of the difficulties the GOP-controlled Congress will have in passing a balanced budget—a campaign promise from last fall.

In a 22-13 party-line vote Thursday, the GOP-led House Budget Committee approved a balanced budget measure, advancing it to the full House for a floor debate this week. But the apparent party unity came only after Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, and other House GOP leaders persuaded defense hawks on the committee to postpone adding more defense money to the resolution.

House and Senate Republicans are unified in their desire to increase the Pentagon’s budget after three years of stagnation under mandatory spending caps instituted by the Budget Control Act of 2011. Even President Barack Obama’s budget proposal increases the core defense budget by $38 billion. But they differ in how to pay for the increased defense spending.

The House Budget Committee measure includes $90 billion in Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) funds—$36 billion more than the president requested—which are exempt from the mandatory spending caps. But fiscal conservatives on the committee insisted that at least $20 billion of that additional Pentagon spending be offset by spending cuts elsewhere in the $3.8 trillion budget.

“Our responsibility, as a defense hawk myself, is to fund the military but also to pay for it by offsets,” said Rep. Marlin Stutzman, R-Ind. “We can find a way to pay for $20 billion.”

The Senate budget panel, chaired by Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., followed suit a few hours later, passing a budget measure on a 12-10 vote that also fell along party lines. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., persuaded the Republican majority on the Senate panel to approve a similar $38 billion proposal to raise military spending to levels the House is expected to approve next week.

Congressional Republicans concede their ability to reconcile the House and Senate budget resolutions and pass a balanced budget will be a test of their ability to govern. But the party’s defense hawks believe spending cuts have already done too much damage to the military.

“This Congress can and should do better than use Overseas Contingency Operations funds to address this crisis of our own making,” said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., in a statement on Wednesday. “However, I refuse to ask the brave young Americans in our military to defend this nation with insufficient resources that would place their lives in unnecessary danger.”

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, a Republican presidential hopeful, said the Senate plan “fails to prioritize our national defense after years of damaging cuts to our nation’s military.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.