Top Senate defense appropriator Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Tuesday the Trump administration’s defense budget outline, which factors in planned reconciliation spending to achieve a $1 trillion topline, “fails” to meet the required level of investment.
McConnell criticized the decision to include anticipated reconciliation funds as a “budgetary sleight of hand.”
“American politicians have criticized partners who used special funds to mask shortcomings in annual defense spending. Well, we should be careful not to mistake our budget reconciliation for long-term commitment, either,” McConnell said in remarks at the Center for Strategic & International Studies’ (CSIS) Global Security Forum.
The Office of Management and Budget earlier this month rolled out the administration’s “skinny” budget proposal for fiscal year 2026, with the White House touting an “unprecedented” 13 percent boost in defense spending (Defense Daily, May 2).
The proposed $1 trillion defense topline includes a base budget request that would remain flat from FY ‘25 at around $893 billion and a factoring in a $113 billion increase that would come from funds in the pending reconciliation bill.
“These increases would be made possible through budget reconciliation, which would allow them to be enacted with simple majorities in the Congress, and not be held hostage by Democrats for wasteful nondefense spending increases as was the case in President Trump’s first term,” the White House previously said of its proposal.
The budget outline received swift pushback from several senior Republicans, including McConnell, who have advocated for significant increases in defense spending, to include boosting the topline to five percent of GDP.
McConnell at CSIS said he supports using the reconciliation bill to make a “significant, one-time investment” in defense, while adding he believes it’s “as dangerous as it is profoundly unserious” to use those dollars to account for full-year appropriations.
“Reconciliation spending may fund short-term operations or investments, but without sustained annual growth, it risks creating massive cliffs in sustainment, personnel, and procurement costs,” McConnell said.
The House Armed Services Committee on April 29 voted to advance the $150 billion compromise proposal to boost defense spending as part of congressional Republicans’ planned reconciliation bill to pass Trump administration priorities, which covers four years of funding and includes $25 billion for the Golden Dome missile defense system, tens of billions to boost shipbuilding and production of munitions and drones, $33.7 billion for shipbuilding and increases for a wide swath of defense priorities (Defense Daily, April 29).
The White House’s budget outline assumes that $119.3 billion of the total $150 billion for defense in the reconciliation bill will be spent in FY ‘26, with $113.3 billion for the Pentagon topline boost and $6 billion for National Nuclear Security Administration defense-related activities.
“Making urgent, nimble, innovative discretionary investments won’t get any easier if we cut the topline in real terms or force the defense enterprise to innovate for today’s challenges with yesterday’s dollars,” McConnell said. “Coming up short on America’s topline commitment to the national defense sends an unmistakable signal to the allies and partners who, for decades, have bet big on American technologies and American leadership.”