Armed Services Chief Lays out Risky Strategy for Budget Hike

By RICHARD LARDNER, ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — Apr 25, 2016, 1:54 PM ET

The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee is proposing an increase in the defense budget by billions of dollars to halt a severe combat readiness problem that he and other Republicans accuse President Barack Obama of ignoring.

Rep. Mac Thornberry's annual defense policy bill, to be released Monday afternoon, would shift $18 billion from the account that finances ongoing war operations to pay for additional ships, jet fighters, helicopters and more that the Pentagon didn't ask for in its $583 billion request. To make up for the shortfall in war spending, the Texas congressman is counting on Obama's successor to submit a supplemental budget to Congress in early 2017.

Budget experts said Thornberry's bid is a gamble, especially in the House, where fiscal conservatives in his own party may refuse to go along.

Todd Harrison, director of defense budget analysis at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Democrats might insist on an equal increase in non-military spending if they control the White House and Senate after the November elections. "House Republicans would have a hard time stopping that because it would mean blocking funding for troops in the battlefield," he said.

Kate Blakeley, a research fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said Thornberry's approach is a "high-risk, high-reward ploy" for defense hawks on Capitol Hill.

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