In a 46–51 vote, Senate Republicans on June 9 toppled an amendment to the 2016 defense authorization bill that would block the obligation of $38 billion in extra wartime spending until Congress lifts the spending caps mandated under the Budget Control Act (BCA).
To circumvent spending limits on the defense budget, House and Senate Republicans have moved $38 billion from the base budget to the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) account, which is exempt from BCA limits. President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats have raged against the OCO boost, calling it a “budget gimmick” that boosts military funding without similar additions to domestic spending.
After the vote, top Democrats indicated that they would be willing to start budget negotiations with the GOP. Failing that, they would fight against the OCO mechanism during the appropriations process.
“We have decided we will not move forward on any of the appropriations bills,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), vice chairman of the Democratic caucus. “Our big fight is going to be on the appropriations bill, and we are not going to move to proceed.” He would not confirm whether Democrats would vote against the authorization bill.
Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), vice chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said she wasn’t happy that she was going to have to move against proceeding with the appropriations bill she helped formulate but, “we need to have a new budget agreement. We need to have more money. We need to end sequester.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said earlier today that he would not begin budget negotiations until after the appropriations process takes place.
“When we finish the National Defense Authorization Act, we’ll go to the defense appropriations bill,” he said. “We’re going to move forward and see what our friends on the other side want to do. … There’s been a lot of talk about stopping bills. We’ll see whether they really want to do that.”
The defeated amendment would have limited the OCO account to $50.9 billion until a budget deal is reached. It also would have barred the Defense Department from using that wartime spending to fund base budget expenditures. The move was meant to incentivize a bipartisan compromise that lifts spending caps for defense and nondefense agencies, said Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I), who offered the amendment and ranks as the Senate Armed Services Committee’s top Democrat.
The BCA imposed proportional cuts to defense and nondefense spending to prompt congressional Republicans and Democrats to work together to combat the deficit, Reed said. The approach taken in the 2016 NDAA would allow GOP lawmakers to get the defense spending they want, while reducing the pressure to find a solution that would repeal the cuts for domestic agencies championed by Democrats.
“Some have said we should avoid subjecting defense spending to the budget control caps through this OCO approach for a year while a deal to revise or eliminate the BCA caps is negotiated. I couldn’t disagree more,” he said. “If we use this approach, this gimmick, for one year it will be easier to do it next year and the year after…ensuring an enduring imbalance between security and domestic spending.”
Obama has threatened to veto any budget that allows the Defense Department to circumvent sequestration but does not fix spending limits on other agencies. A statement of administration policy released last week reiterated that view.
SASC Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz) said that fixing the BCA was his number one priority, but “I refuse to hold funding for the military hostage.”
“We cannot add greater danger” to the lives of servicemembers, which this amendment would do, he said.